Always May
by its0the0ennui
Summary: Lily Evans was never sure of herself, and James Potter never helped that any. So when James sparks up an alliance between the two, Lily can't help but suspect an ulterior motive. And guess what? She was right.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Lily Evans sat solitarily by the water, feeling tragically alone and knowing fully she should move before she caught her death. Saddened, unsure of herself, wishing for a friend, she swung her legs through the cloudy waters of the lake, and wondered if the world was okay like this, if she was okay. She knew she'd wake up tomorrow, and she would look over at James, and everything would be right again, but, for now, she was simply lost.

In her lap lay the faded blue-jean journal that she had once considered a friend, a loving confidante who wouldn't disagree with every word she spoke. The words inside felt distant now, like lies or like a prior life she no longer connected with. She traced the two words she had once scrawled across the cover, and she felt as if she was freezing up and slowly, slowly dying. She didn't know how to fix it, to heal it; more so, she didn't know how to go about dying for what she had once been.

_Was it necessary to be so alone_, she wondered, _to be so broken, to become so fragile? Could it have been different, and still be the same?_ She couldn't remedy herself now, not after her life had changed so drastically.

It had been five months since her world had shifted into a summersault of words and thoughts and feelings. If she could erase it, she wouldn't have. Knowing that, she pulled her feet out of the water, bent them in front of her and studied the exact color of red she had painted them two days prior. She yawned widely, and thought about how she wanted a cigarette, though she knew it was better not to smoke one. She pulled a black boot over her toes, over her heel, over her cold, wet feet, and tied it with slow precision, then proceeded to repeat the action on the other foot.

She wasn't sure she remembered how to stand, though she did so anyway, looking into the lake and hoping she wouldn't fall. Her grip on the notebook drew blood back from her fingers, turning them a paler white then they had formerly been, though Lily barely noticed it. But as her knees locked straight, she couldn't stop the flick of her wrist that surprised her so much that she lost hold of the denim and sent the journal flying right into the lake.

She wasn't sure she had ever meant to do it, and she didn't know if it mattered, and for a moment, all she wanted was someone to hold her, to love her, to tell her it was ok. And she closed her eyes and slowly, slowly, slowly imagined the notebook with all her thoughts and the two words "Always May" fading into the deepest depths of the water.

She bit her lip, turned back to face Hogwarts castle, and decided to never ever wish upon a sun-bright day again.

A/N: This is _Always May_, rewritten. I'm in the process, and have been for several months now, of reworking the entire story from the mess I started writing two years ago into a more organized, perhaps more conventional fanfiction novel. Before, _May_ was really just a tempest of words, each disconnected from all the rest, and I've always been okay with that. Lately, I've come across a higher standard for what I write. I can no longer leave posted what I had. I originally posted this on I will probably continue to post new chapters there until I reach chapter thirteen in the rewrites. I may or may not then erase it from their database.

I currently have a great deal of pride in this story, so feel free to tear all that down. Review with your worst. It's character-building.


	2. Uncertainty

**Chapter One: Uncertainty**

_Feel the world in a glint of an eye._

Lily grinned in a self-sufficient burst of pride at the words. She hadn't expected them, and they struck her deeply because of it. He had called her a beautiful girl, and maybe he didn't mean it, but he had said it, despite her obnoxiously red hair, and despite the fact that she hardly wore any make-up. He was a man of god, a man so pure that he was perfectly made with brilliantly brown eyes that saw everything in her, and he thought _she_ was beautiful.

She wondered what about her made him say that, if it was the way she had brushed her hair that morning or that she wasn't wearing lipstick, so unlike the other girls at the church that Sunday morning? She thought about the way she had pulled him aside after the service and asked him if pleasure in pain was okay, since god caused pain as well. She wondered why he asked her what sort of pain such a _beautiful_ girl could ever feel. Did he feel pain? He was a priest, of course, and she wasn't sure priests were human in the way everyone else was.

She wasn't, certainly. As a witch, as she had known she was since she was eleven years old, she wasn't the same as her family, or any of the Muggles she had met in her life. A priest would be like that too, she thought.

It hadn't been a good day; not before they had spoken. Her eyes felt too much a startling green, and her skirt, also green though somewhat paler, seemed to clash with the vibrancy she felt. She felt raw, ugly, rushed out of bed. She had drunk her tea much quicker than she should have, and she liked it even less for that. Her white heels hurt her toes, and her mother had forced her too take off the electric blue nail-polish she had been wearing, claiming it was too exuberant for the ecclesiastic Sunday norm of church.

All morning, she felt as if she was sinning against god. She wasn't sure why, and she didn't want to know, but as Father Alexander gave his sermon, she listened so intently, she felt as if he spoke to her alone. More than anything, she wanted to speak to him, for him to tell her what to do with her life, and she wanted to be sure that it was okay that she was a witch. He might tell her that it was an honor, that God had divinely chosen her as one, she thought, but she didn't have the courage to ask.

She asked about pain, instead, deciding that being a witch was the pain God had chosen her to feel. And he called her beautiful, even though she was sure he could see everything about her; the impurities, the magic, the breaks and fractures and passions. She had tilted her head in wonder, with eyes widened much bigger than they normally were.

She wanted to kiss him, and suck in all of his purity. She wanted him to call her beautiful again, and she wanted to smile at him this time, to not get so lost in his eyes.

She sat against the white stone church, back straight, legs bent, skirt falling all around her, pulling her hair back away from her face. If she could be anything but what she was, she wished she was pure like Father Alex. She wished she could convey all his godliness in speech until she wasn't alone, until she was different, until she had deep brown eyes that saw through the world until all of it was pure.

She closed her eyes, smiling a little. She liked who she was right here by the church, even if her eyes were too green and her hair too red and her nature too strange. Even if no one loved her but herself. A beautiful man, a priest God must love, saw good in her. Lily smiled and let her teeth sink into her lips.

"Lily, how many _times_ have I told you not to put your jumpers in the dryer? Now your lavender one's ruined, and I don't think it can be fixed."

Lily scrunched her eyes a little, trying to push her mother's high voice a little further from her ear. She had been trying to remember the exact amount of mandrake root necessary in a potion to cure pus-exuding warts. Remembering that the pus from those warts was helpful, if saved, in other forms of healing made the potion tricky. If the potion was made correctly, the effects of the mandrake root counteracted the pus, and made a sort of orange precipitate in place of the warts, which could then be scraped off and stored. However, if the maker measured the mandrake root to the wrong degree, there was a spectrum of dangerous results that could last over a century. She wrote a number on her parchment, hoped it was the right amount, and then looked up at the wall opposite her chair.

"That's not mine. I'm fairly sure it's Petty's favorite, though. I'd suggest you break the news to her in a gentler way than you've told me. You know how touchy she can be." She spoke with her lips tightened, rather like her sister, Petunia, in that. She waved her fingers around in front of her face, distracting herself and her mother, her eyes made wide by some unseen force. She turned to face her mother. "I'd rather not be blamed for every little mistake in this house. I know I can't cook, or clean, or dress properly, but I don't have to know those things."

Mrs. Mary Evans looked at her daughter with equally widened green eyes, and her own tight-lipped smile slowly relaxed. Just when her daughter though she would scold her for her sass, she spoke again with softer, motherly accents. "I've missed you, darling."

Lily raised an eyebrow and smiled. "I've missed you too, mum. I'd stay here much longer if I could." She tried not to think of decadently brown eyes, ones she could see every Sunday if she just stayed home, ones that saw her as _beautiful_.

"I'll hold the days back, Lily."

Lily blinked and smiled, watching almost thoughtlessly as her mother turned back to unload a rainbow of laundry from the dryer, filling the room with the sent of freshness.

Lily brought the phone a little lower from her ear. "I don't know, Calli. It's a long drive, and mum hates cars." She listened to the voice on the other side of the line, shrugged, and then spoke. "It _has_ been forever. But it's really still Christmas, isn't it? Mostly? My mum doesn't see me very often, and it's not even the New Year yet, so she probably wants to keep me for herself." The conversation paused on Lily's side. "No, of course I'm no mummy's girl. Have you ever known me that way." Lily listened to the quickness of the resounding '_yes_.'"Well, I'm not one. Maybe I'll see you over Easter."

Lily placed the receiver back at it berth, and shifted her jaw. She couldn't even remember the last time she had seen Calli Dale. Perhaps it had been the summer before at somebody's (Lily couldn't remember whose) grandmother's luau which Calli's mother had driven sixty miles to, just so the two friends could see each other. Schools apart, miles apart, eons apart, it didn't really matter the distance; Lily already knew she and Calli had stopped being best friends the day Lily received her first Hogwarts letter.

It was far too difficult to bridge the gap between the Muggle and Magical worlds. She had seen people do it, like a boy in her year, Remus Lupin, but he always looked so worn. It seemed much too hard a job to do.

Lily walked back to her chair in the den and continued to scrawl neat letters forming words about mandrake root and pus-exuding warts.


	3. Pierced Soul

**Chapter Two: Pierced Soul**

_It isn't so hard to pierce the days with glinting stones and gaudy diamonds. It's much harder to live with it._

Lily stared at the ceiling and her head pulsed. There was nowhere she would rather be than here, seated in the corner of the den with her elbow on her knee and her head cocked sideways into her elbow. She compared the light from the large window behind her to the shadows that danced up the walls and mingled where the light hit ceiling, and let her thoughts pass her by.

She thought of Petunia, her sister; the way her speech turned into screeches when it reached a certain pitch, and the way her fingers were beautifully narrow, and how she had never seen hair the same shade of blonde as Petunia's hair. She thought of her mother telling her she loved her and beaming so big that her cheeks took a faint blush to them. And she thought about how she couldn't remember Remus Lupin without a book nearby; how she should read more often and study a little harder at transfiguration. Her thoughts all muddled together, and later she wouldn't remember what she thought about in the little corner of the den as her mind ran wild.

It was a rainy day, a week into January. The windows had taken a light frost to them, and Lily thought the rain might soon turn to snow, though she didn't mind either way. Instead, she imagined it a muggy afternoon, halfway through the summer holidays, and how she had planted a ring of sunflowers in the garden which she wished she could lie down under but was too lazy to actually do so. She smiled as she thought of it, and decided that the following summer she would learn to plant sunflowers, because they were so strangely beautiful and they would make such a pretty place to hide.

She wondered if Father Alex had thought of her since they had spoken the Sunday before, but couldn't bring herself to care whether or not he had. She couldn't find a reason to the day, a center to the nothingness that surrounded her, and she couldn't make herself search for any beauty in the rain and fog or the angle at which her head was pressed into the crook of her arm.

She realized vaguely that a single spell would separate her mind into four parts, one for each of the things she was: divinity; beauty; wonder; tranquility. It was an old spell, and she wasn't supposed to know of it, but it was the most interesting thing she had ever heard of, the division of a human being into such strange parts. She wasn't sure she could fit into any of the four, but the more she thought of it, the more she considered casting it, going so far as to reach into her pocket, and slowly, slowly, slowly, lazily even, draw out her wand.

Willow with a center of unicorn hair, very good for charms. Mr. Ollivander had told her so five year prior, and it had always been true. She could cast the spell easily, she was sure.

"You know, you're not supposed to be waving that thing around the house, _Lily_." Petunia's voice resonated with a high pitch of superiority to it and a lack of reverence for magic.

Lily shrugged, hardly concerned with her sister. "Probably," she said. "But you shouldn't say those things when I am."

"_Why_ not?"

Her voice challenged her sister's slow, undemanding, almost morose nature, and Lily raised her head from her arm to look at her sister, to blink, and to shrug again. Lily looked away to stare back up through her eyelashes at the ceiling. She thought it should be obvious that she could turn her into a frog, or a pin, or an ant.

Petunia was quiet for a moment, glaring, with her hand on her hips, her feet on the stairs that led up from the den to the second floor. Her eyes had a flare to them, though she wasn't sure how to turn that into words, and she stomped her foot, though Lily didn't hear it. "Can't you tell mum I'm going out now?"

Lily straightened up. "Can't," she said, frowning, thinking, leaning forward so she could stand up. "Write her a note; she's not home."

"Yes, but _you'll_ tell her when she _does_ get home."

"Can't," Lily repeated, stepping lightly a few steps through the room. "Can't, can't, can't, can't,"

Petunia rolled her eyes and stomped her foot again, and Lily saw it this time. "Well, why not?" she asked, her voice growing higher as if she was about to cry. She glared harder and waited for a reply, though Lily didn't give an answer, thinking it better, or ruder, or easier (it was hard to tell which) to step onto the stairs and walk past her sister than to speak to her. "Why, Lily?"

"Because I don't want to give her a bloody message from you. I'm going out."

Lily knocked on the hard oak door, reflecting on her sister's request and wondering if she should have slapped her, but as the door opened a crack and the saw the brown eyes of Father Alexander, she thought it was better she had left when she had and wondered if she should ask God for forgiveness for swearing at her sister. She looked down the street at the little gray church, about a block away, and looked at his eyes, not sure of what was found there. He opened the door wider, seeing it was her, and smiled a little. "Miss Evans," he said. "I wouldn't have suspected you." 

She wondered if it would be rude to tell him she wouldn't have suspected him to be wearing blue jeans. He was wearing them, too, paired with a T-shirt advertising some sort of French motorcycle race and holding a glass of wine. A little unnerved, quickly understanding the fine line between man and priest, she smiled and pointed to the glass, a little awkward but calm despite herself. "Blood of Christ?" she asked him.

"Yes, of course," he said. He seemed to relax at this, though, because, with a deep breath, he laughed a little and she thought that every other time she had heard him laugh sounded much more forced. He opened the door wider so she could enter, as she did. "How are you?" he said, his voice sounding like he wasn't sure what else to say. "How have you been since, what, Sunday?"

"Good. Always good, you know?" She tilted her head one side to the other and then smiled. Sighing, she let the smile drop. "Don't mind it that I forget you'd know when I'm lying, Father."

He frowned. "Alex," he said.

"What?"

"Call me, Alex. It's strange that you call me Father. I have sisters younger than you." He crossed the room into the kitchen of the apartment, turning to look at Lily. He raised a wine glass. "_Blood of Christ_?" he offered, a note of irony wavering in his voice, and she nodded, unsure why she had. She wasn't sure she should see him like this, as a man rather than a god. She hadn't been sure there was a difference until now. She looked at him, realizing quickly he was looking back. She blushed slightly, looked down, and looked back up again when he offered her the glass.

"You can sit if you like-"

"You know, you can call me 'Lily' if you want." she said, not seeming to notice she had interrupted him with her own burst of thought until she had. She blushed again, and wondered if she should apologize, but never did. She sat quickly on the small black couch at the center of the living room. She cleared her throat, laughing awkwardly a moment later. "You've got a nice place." She told him. "Alex," she added as an afterthought.

"Lily," he said. He sat next to her and took a sip of wine. Somewhere in the apartment, a record was softly playing a blues tunes. "Lily," he repeated, more forcefully this time. "What are you doing here?"

She shrugged, drinking a little from her glass, noticing the way the wine felt dryly conserved. She looked up at the man before her. "I needed to lose myself in something, you know. Have you ever felt like that?"

He nodded, looking down at the coffee table in front of them, at the wine bottle at the center also, but mostly at the mahogany wood. "Every day of my life, I think," he laughed again, like he was covering over the things he had said. "But I know what it's like."

"You just want to feel alive. You don't care what it takes." She paused, blowing her hair out of her face. "I'm not normally like this, Alex."

He raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing.

"I'm quieter. I talk less. I study and I'm good. Jesus, Alex, how are you _so_ godly?"

"Godly?" he asked. "I'm not." He put a hand on her leg and laughed deeply, eyes twinkling madly with amusement. "You're such a strange girl. I don't even believe you're here."

"Well, I am," she said. "And you _are_ godly. Even if you don't know it. I've never met anyone like that before. Priests aren't supposed to be like that, are they?" She laughed too, finishing off her glass of wine and setting it on the table. He poured another glass for each of them, and pushed his black hair from his eyes. She watched the action, how graceful it was, and rested deeper into the pillows on the side of the couch. "I'm glad I'm here." She told him.

He rested his hand on her hip, taking another sip of wine, and smiled. "So am I."

Lily scratched her head a little. "Alex, what time is it?" She felt as if she'd been there for days. She'd never spoken so deeply with a person, learned so much about anyone so quickly. It was enticing, intoxication, breath-taking. _He_ was breath-taking, she decided. She'd never met anyone so lively or so real. He had so much faith in everything, in everyone, and she understood that was why he was a priest.

"Late, I think," he told her, blinking and seeming to realize he had had too much wine. "Too late for you to be here. I- It's," he checked a clock a little ways away. "Far later than it should be."

"Should I go, Alex?" she asked. "I don't know what my mother will say if I get home in the middle of the night."

He laughed. "My mum never took it very well." He stroked her cheek, his eyes wandering her face. "I don't think I want you to leave."

"I don't want to," she laughed. "But I can't very well stay the night. I-"

His lips met hers before she even realized they ever might. Warm, real, pulsing with divinity and strength, his kiss searched the very depths of her for something similar. His hands wandered her stomach, and her fingers grazed his back. She _wanted_ him to kiss her, _wanted_ to be kissed. He was so much more beautiful like this than she could possibly have imagined. Slowly, it dawned on her, that he could be everything she had ever wanted.

His kisses deepened, fiery in their fervent nature, but precise in making her feel like she was like that too, like she was truly alive. And even as she wasn't sure how to give him the same idea and feelings, he drew her shirt over her head, and she wanted him to see her like that, wanted him to enjoy everything about her. She wanted him to think she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was undoing his belt when she realized she was much less graceful, that he must have done this before, but that hardly mattered to her, and she continued to unzip his pants with fumbling hands.

If there was any way to stop herself, she wouldn't have.

It must have been around four the next morning that Lily woke up in the gray-dressed, mahogany bed, a little cold with only the gray sheet draped across her, and very much alone. Pulling her self upwards, she felt as if her center had been torn and her body throbbed at the apex of her legs. She couldn't remember ever having felt this before. It began to dawn on her she sat fully that she had spent the night in bed with a priest. She chewed on her lip absently as she wondered why she had done it, wondered if she was now divine, wondered if this was what it felt like to have kiss-bruised lips. She liked the feeling, liked the way she felt fresh, new, separate from everything she had been up until then. She drew her fingers over her lips, and wrapped the sheet tighter around her.

The air smelt strongly of slightly burned coffee, a tarry smell, and something sexual, raw, and very human. Feeling as if she was being watched, she turned to see Alex sitting in a chair nearby, eyes wide, and looking worn.

"I made you coffee, Lily," he said. "I didn't have sugar so I put honey in it. I've never had mine like that."

"Neither have I," she admitted, not very intent on her speech. She watched him carefully, not sure what to tell him, and wondered what she was supposed to say. He had a wild-eyed look about him, and she didn't know how to change that. "Are you okay?"

He smiled. "No, not really." He told her, "I don't do this. Not anymore."

"I don't," she paused, and tried to laugh as if she was saying something trivial and unimportant. "I don't either, you know. What am I supposed to say to you?"

He looked up at her to smile kindly, and she hoped she would never see anyone look so sad again. His eyes were drawn darker than normal and squinted so they didn't seem so brilliant, and his cheeks were paler than the norm. He looked as if he hadn't slept for days, and she wondered for a moment if he had.

"You were a virgin?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement, but she felt inclined to answer, to say something to make him stop looking at her. She nodded, thinking it would be more proper to blush, though she didn't see how it would matter either way. "Sorry," he whispered.

"_Don't be_. I don't mind. I should be sorry. I shouldn't have come."

"No," he said, shaking his head, and laughing in a whisper's pitch. "No," he looked up at her moving over so he could sit on the bed. He kissed her forehead, smiled down at her, and kissed her lower lip. "You're so beautiful, I could never have resisted. But I can't do this. I can't have you here."

"Alex, I'm _so _sorry." She kissed him despite her words, and he wrapped his arms around her, and by the time she knew he was crying, she was too.

Lily had never hurt so deeply in all her life as she scraped her key out of the lock and opened the front door of the house she had grown up in. There weren't any lights on, and Lily was very aware of how lonely the house felt, how no one believed in it any more and it was no longer a home. She and Petunia had grown up, their father had left, their mother had changed. It looked the same as it always had, and it still smelt a little of burnt food, and, if you listened close enough, you could still hear the sound of children laughing and girls screaming and sisters turning into women, but it breathed differently. She couldn't describe it any better.

She stepped from her sneakers, leaving them by the door to warm up again for whatever tomorrow would bring, and padded in her socks across the aqua rug and collapsed on her own dear couch.

There were no lights on, and she wasn't sure what she would do with the rest of her life.

**A/N: This is the end of what I have rewritten. It may be a while before I get more done, but the nex time I do, I should have a new chapter as well.**


	4. Cold Kindnesses

Chapter 4: Cold Kindnesses  
  
*We, the simple mortals of the world, do not decide life. It is not at our command no matter how much we wish it to be.*  
  
Lily woke the next morning on the coffee-colored couch. It was lit with the morning sun, and it was oh-so comfy. Comfy would be the word, Lily thought to herself, her mind still muddled with sleep. It was almost too comfy to wake, she recognized as she lifted her eyelids.  
  
And then the light struck and it all came rushing back.  
  
*"You took me, Alex, and I'll never forgive you for that."*  
  
It seemed to be a bit shady to leave the couch at such a time. It seemed inappropriate. But then, hadn't she only just thrown the rulebook out the window?  
  
Lily groaned into her arm. His was so stupid. Who cared if she screwed some half-assed priest? She coughed unhappily. Unless he fucked up her entire life in doing so. It was still so fresh in her mind, the way he stole her soul. What she couldn't understand, though, was if in taking her spirit, did he turn himself into Satan?  
  
Then a sudden thought struck her. What if she was pregnant? In a moment of sympathy in his malevolent ways, perhaps he had tried to give her something in return for her attentions. God, would that be tragic. After all, she *did* have a reputation and it absolutely could not be ruined. With a small nod she made a pact with herself: if she were pregnant, she wouldn't be pregnant for long.  
  
A door creaked open on the floor above.  
  
"Verny, you have to go!" a vile voice shrieked through a cluster of high-pitched giggles.  
  
A low voice grunted. "Just once more, love. I'll leave if you suck me off just once more. C'mon, Petty,"  
  
Verny? Petty? Suck off?  
  
"EWW!"  
  
Lily tensed so greatly she feared she might have condensed. This was SO not right. Could That really be Petunia Evans up there with Vearon, or Varan, or whoever in hell he was. Did he actually spend the night at her house, Lily's house? Was that even possible?  
  
A clatter could be heard as someone scuttled to the stairs. And then there was a crash, a groan and a "Vernon! Look, I'll help. Just pull them up. I'll button them up."  
  
Vernon. That was right.  
A second passed. "Oh, god," she muttered to herself. "Tune, can your boy-toy, Verona or whatever, try and not be so *loud*? I was trying to sleep down here." Then she blanched as she heard a small moan. "I suggest you stop doing," she paused, scrunching her nose up, "whatever you're doing; I'm coming up."  
  
There was a brief clomping on the floor and then a door slammed.  
  
"Ugh! Thank you, god," Lily gasped, sliding off the couch.  
  
It certainly wasn't unimaginable to think of Petunia sleeping around. It wasn't as if she truly had any particular set of morals, and the only object of value in her heart, for indeed it was an object that she treasured, was the corpulent diamond that would soon sit on her ring finger. Travesty it was that drove Petunia Evans down her path in life. It was that travesty that would taint the girl with unhappiness. And it was that unhappiness that she would feel as she died.  
  
Rubbing her eyes with fatigue, she padded softly across the carpet and up the stairs. All she wished for was a little bit of peace in her lonely, cold world. Alas, she wasn't so lucky.  
  
"I've gotta pack," she told herself quietly.  
  


* * *

  
Lily sat down slowly on the maroon seat in the scarlet train. It was late in the day that Lily arrived on the train. However, she happened to be right on time. It seemed that the holiday train ran now on a different schedule than the summer train. Lily sighed. Dumbledore seemed to think it would be *magical* for those who stayed at school to wake up to a full dorm one day when they went to sleep in an empty one.  
  
It seemed pointless to her.  
  
It was dark and dull in the big, empty compartment. Her trunk only took up so much room. She should have bought that cat. Damn. She breathed in. Oh, god, it was time to sleep. So she lay her head onto her shoulder and prepared to end her world for a little while, at least.  
  
Yet it seemed that god was not ready for her to find such a treat.  
  
The door slammed open with a bang.  
  
"Brilliant!" A voice announced.  
  
The voice was undeniably male. It was rather deep, but only in the most fitting way. It was soft and kindly, but Lily knew just how crude the boy could be, with the expressions of that soft kindly voice in particular. This boy was a boy that Lily hated.  
  
She blinked in frustration.  
  
"A little dreary, but that'll do okay"  
  
Lily grunted. "Can you go now?"  
  
The boy blinked. "Lily, love," he gasped happily, causing her to roll her eyes.  
  
"Potter," she said with a nod of recognition.  
  
He nodded his head attentively.  
  
"Well, can you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
Lily let out a great heave, throwing her hands in the air.  
  
"Go," she said, "Are you going to go?"  
  
"Go to sleep, baby," he whispered.  
  
She grunted and let her head fall backwards.  
  
"If I weren't so tired I'd curse you."  
  
"I know."  
  


* * *

  
It was late when Lily woke.  
  
Well, woke wasn't really even the half of it.  
  
*Woken*, would be more fitting. The boy, Potter she called him, was the raison d'être.  
  
Potter kept his eyes fixed so unblinkingly on Lily. True, she was very pretty with her dark red curls and aqua eyes. She looked good enough, and her face was quite lovely. But it was unnatural for her to have admirers. She wasn't a very remarkable witch. She was just a virginal prefect with prettier-than-usual looks.  
  
Potter just didn't understand that.  
  
What Lily woke to was eyes, so very close to hers.  
  
Lily wasn't claustrophobic, she was just Catholic. She believed in propriety, and trust and love before sex. But Lily Evans had thrown the rulebook out the window. Hadn't she?  
  
"Sorry," he said quickly.  
  
She shook her head, her trashed rulebook in mind. "It's okay."  
  
His look was a questioning one.  
  
He knew well enough that she hated him. Everybody did. It was a well-known fact that Lily would readily kill the boy, torn limb from limb one chunk at a time. After all, it had only been two weeks ago that she had kicked him where, Lily coughed, the sun don't shine.  
  
He swallowed in painful memory.  
  
"Well, let's sit then."  
  
She nodded.  
  
"It's late, you know,"  
  
"Yeah, so?"  
  
"I do like to sleep." She paused. "You know, that thing normal people do at night?"  
  
"That's funny. I thought they shagged."  
  
"Only in your twisted imagination,"  
  
"With you, no doubt,"  
  
No doubt," she agreed instantly, only to meet his sparkling gaze a moment later.  
  
"Or in Sirius' reality,"  
  
Lily giggled a giggle that sounded like golden bells.  
  
"You call that reality?' she asked. "Because I call it a constant high. Really, James, what does that boy smoke?"  
  
He grinned. "You want some?" He paused, slowly processing her words. "You called me James."  
  
"I know."  
  
AN: Please people, review! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! You know that little  
blue box down there? It loves you. 


	5. Unexpected Camaraderie

Chapter Five: Unexpected Camaraderie  
  
*Don't expect life; don't expect death; expect nothing, for you shall never then be disappointed.*  
  
Lily didn't like life. It was slow and unruly and so dreadfully pointless. It didn't matter. Then again, nothing really does matter when you're lonely. That's the entire point of loneliness, to seek and destroy. The quickest death is inevitably insanity. You cannot control a wreckage of the brain, and loneliness is that wreckage. At the crux of every person, there is a hole, a blank spot of darkness so dreary that an ounce of it is lethal. At birth, that whole is centered in our hearts, and there it grows. That hole, that fatal emptiness, that chasm of abyss does not exist to the naked eye. Oh, no. It is invisible, and in that, it goes unnoticed as long as it possibly can. But love and hate and voided emotions are incredibly powerful, and with the annihilation of innocence, comes the dawn of emptiness. And with that emptiness will come desolation.  
  
Lily stretched her hands out, palms pushing away an unseen evil, perhaps even her very own thoughts. She didn't want her thoughts, she didn't want her spirit, she didn't want her life. All she wanted was a long, dark sleep, with no disturbances and no people.  
  
People sucked.  
  
*Humans are vitreous beings,* she thought bitterly to herself, *so senselessly easy to understand.*  
  
To Lily, minds could be reads, like and open page of a book basic charms. Actions were easy to understand; it was rudimentary psychology. The motives of fragmentary actions, actions still left unfinished, however, were quite a bit more complex.  
  
Her thoughts were then led to the motives of James Potter. Why in the name of all that's magical would that boy talk to her? They were enemies for Merlin's sake. What could possibly drive him at befriending her, Lily Evans. Her virginity, she thought instantly. He had been trying to get her to date him for years. And just for one shag. Had the boy no logic, she wondered. She supposed if he knew about the priest, he would be sorely disappointed. Perhaps he'd then leave her alone, but did she want him too? And what is sex had nothing to do with their new friendship-like thing.  
  
Friendship-like thing? That might have been getting a little to friendly for her as long as it included Potter.  
  
"Lily,"  
  
Speak of the Devil.  
  
"Potter," she whispered in a deathly tone. "You're in my room at four A.M." just because they were no longer enemies, *per se*, didn't mean she had to be completely nice. So she bared her teeth at him through the dark, even though she suspected that the affect was lost.  
  
"Scared?"  
  
"Perhaps. How the hell did you get in here?"  
  
"My secret, you curser,"  
  
"Then keep your secrets and keep away from my bed."  
  
He grinned childishly, but its appearance evanesced in the shadows.  
  
"As long as you keep away from your bed too." He told her.  
  
She scoffed quietly.  
  
"I mean, please stay away from your bed and come with me."  
  
She scoffed again.  
  
He growled lightly. "*You* are impossible to please. I even said please, Evans."  
  
She imitated his growl in a girlish fashion.  
  
"Just come with me." He paused. "I'll tell you my secret."  
  
"Okay."  
  
James Potter helped the girl to her feet. Her hair splayed out behind her in a rouge flag, and her eyes sparkled. Lily loved secrets for no other reason but that she never had someone to share them with. She trusted nobody, and it meant a great deal to her that he trusted her with his.  
  
He took her hand and led her to the window.  
  
"Whatever you do," he said softly into her ear. "don't let go of my hand. *Accio broom*"  
  
Swiftly, his broom conjured in front of him.  
  
"I don't like to fly." She stated.  
  
"Sure you do.  
  
"No," She told him deeply. "No, I don't."  
  
His frame condensed slightly in the dark, leading Lily to believe that he was shrugging his shoulders.  
  
Lily stepped slowly in long, dragging steps away from the window. After all, height was bad. Height was *really* bad. While the darkness in her room certainly was dangerous to be walking backwards through, flying through that very same darkness was even less appealing. She'd much rather keep her feet firmly on the stone floor.  
  
And then she crashed into the wall with a slight thump and a quiet "ow".  
  
"Fun?" Potter asked sarcastically.  
  
"Quite,"  
  
She made her way through the door that was ever so slightly to her left. It was hardly a quick walk down to the Common Room on any normal day, and yet Hogwarts had its many attractions, and as Lily made her way down those frigid, twisting stairs that led the way down, Potter followed. Of course, he should have known just how bad an idea that was, but James Potter, being James Potter, didn't think through the choice as he made it. And that was dangerous. Halfway down the stairs, Lily felt a shift. Looking back up behind her, she glimpsed the stairs rapidly turning into a slide, one by one, as James made his way downward at a frightful pace. She clutched to the railing, scowling at he grinning boy, and hoping against hope that she wouldn't have to go down that slide too. Landing in an unflattering position above James Potter was not her idea of good fun. Hell below, being above James Potter at any time wasn't fun- unless it was class-standing.  
  
Then his body just thunked over her stair, plopping onto his stomach with surprise written all over his face. And Lily laughed her first laugh in a awfully long time.  
  
She had somehow forgotten how good it felt to laugh, to even smile. It was unlike any wonder in the world. It was magic. For a second, it was pure joy, joy that she very rarely felt.  
  
And then it disappeared. Just like that.  
  
Her heart fell lower than it had been before.  
  
She descended down to his level at a cursory pace. The stairs were steep, though, and slightly scary, causing her to pray to whatever deity it was that protected teenage girls from falling down blasted stairs. And then she was a step above him, and she stepped onto, and over, the boy, heel, toe, heel, toe.  
  
He withered slightly beneath her weight. After all, she was small; not without mass.  
  
She crossed the Common Room quickly and plummeted into the large fauteuil with a cushion that swallowed her into it. James, groaning vaguely, joined her thereafter.  
  
"So we're down here, are we?" he asked.  
  
Lily pointed up. "Well, were most certainly not up there." She grunted and added in an undertone, "Thank you, divine spirit of the stairs,"  
  
She guessed he heard based on the condescending look that fell onto his features.  
  
"Are you all right in the head." He asked.  
  
"Certainly."  
  
"Then I have something for you."  
  
Lily scowled. She hated presents. She got a bike for her birthday from her mother once. That was ten years ago. After she fell, she decided against gifts for life.  
  
"I won't except it." She told him.  
  
"Yes, you will. And you'll do it with euphoria."  
  
Lily wondered weakly just why she doubted him, but if she could *not* have to distrust him, that would be just fine. However, the only way to stop herself from doing so him was to make him go away. To hell with the damned rules that were, she paused in slight confusion, in hell already. Or to heaven were the rules. No, she decided, restored to life. The rules had been reborn. Now she could hate him again, and happily so.  
  
"I don't know why in hell you're so confidant. You have no reason to be; it wasn't more than three weeks ago that I called you a toe-rag, now was it? I'd just be happy if you left me alone to sleep."  
  
"Yeah, the thing normal people do at night,"  
  
"Yes, you remembered. It *is* something normal people do at four a.m."  
  
"But I'm not normal."  
  
She sighed. "Sadly, no, you're not."  
  
"And if I were you'd just *love* to date me?" he asked cheekily.  
  
Her eyes narrowed. "No, not me, thank you very much," she mocked.  
  
"Blow me?"  
  
"You're vile," she told him.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
The fire crackled behind her and she wondered how it would look if she could catch it, freeze frame. Maybe it would be like a miniature hell. In a hell-on-Earth, hell could freeze over. She decided immediately that the only way that she would ever date James Potter was if hell froze over. However, she resolved, she didn't have to be a total bitch.  
  
"Sorry," she told him with her usual small, girlish voice. "But that was hardly a complement."  
  
He shrugged.  
  
"I still have a gift for you."  
  
"Don't bother,"  
  
"You'll like it. It's damn nice, if I say so myself."  
  
"Feeling narcissistic?"  
  
Potter paused in perplexity instigating a smirk to graze Lily's lips.  
  
"I don't prefer being with stupid people."  
  
"I'm not stupid," he said, "In fact, I'm excessively smart."  
  
She nodded and shrugged.  
  
It wasn't crazy to believe that James Potter was intelligent. He wasn't exactly a clever person. Of course, he *was* friends with Sirius Black; best friends. You couldn't just get rid of that kind of presence with a snap of one's fingers. It just wasn't that easy, though. She just wished she was sure that she was wittier than James Potter.  
  
Then she gave in. "Narcissism is vanity," she told him. "A quality you possess, and a quality that it appears that I like because I'm going to except your present."  
  
He shrugged. "As you wish."  
  
Slowly, he brought out a blue-jean journal from beneath his slick, black cloak.  
  
"I just want you to be happy." He whispered.  
  
"James, why do I need to be happy?"  
  
"Because you need to live."  
  
Lily smiled wryly, her pink wrinkling as she clutched at her arms. God, this was crazy.  
  
"Why live when you can die?" she asked him gently.  
  
James shrugged. "Why die when you can live?"  
  
She smiled at him, amazed at his outlook on life. He was not just another boy. He was high and mighty. He was James Potter.  
  
"Thanks for the journal." She told him in a whisper as she rose. "I mean it, Potter."  
  
She nodded at him, despite the fact that she puzzled at whether she was lying to him, and smiled her goofy smile that she gave when she was genuinely happy. However, she wasn't sure whether she was acting. As quick as one who is occupied with thoughts can do, and soon she fell safe into her dormitory bed for a silent sleep.  
  
"I hope you mean that, Evans. Go to sleep." He said with the most insignificant wave of his wand.  
  
And so Lily plunged into her haunting dreams of apathy and death that just won't come, the dreams that just kept getting worse, because Lily Evans was on the path of destruction.  
  
Dreams James knew nothing of.  
  
A/N: Once again, I do realize that this is confusing. Basically, the whole first part of the story is setting up for the second half in which Lily must stop the "game of gods" as I called it. The priest is just background stuff that will just vanish. He'll probably come back and bite Lily in the ass much later in the story. He's a great character, though, later on. Or at least I developed him to be. I used to write a story about Alexandre the Drunken French Priest- just for my own amusement. Now I suppose he's taking form (and my, oh my, what great form it is. J/K) But seriously, this is an L/J story. I am a romantic, and I'll probably just ignore this later, but this is supposed to be Lily's freaky-deaky weird-ass story. Just trust me, it will kind of make sense over time. Sorry, I'm just not good at understanding that some people (er, that would be *most people*) just don't get me.  
  
This is gonna be an angsty little fanfic, so please beware.  
  
Oh, and if you do like this story, please review my other one. It's an L/J too, except, well, it seems weird right now. I'm having a bit of trouble writing it.  
  
Please, please review. I'm praying to all deities for reviews.  
  
Thank you's go out to everyone who reviewed this story- lots and lots of tanks  
  
Later days,  
  
Hunter 


	6. Candid Realizations

Chapter 6: Candid Realizations  
  
*Life falls. Despite gravity, despite all the rules that science inflicts on everything living thing we, as humans, see, life still falls.*  
  
Lily half lay on her bed and half precariously crouched on the hard floor. Beneath her, far beneath her, she could hear the high- pitched yells of third year girls. They were screaming about a horde of frogs, or toads, or something green and slimy that the Potter and his friends had set loose in the Common Room. Nothing that so very important that Lily truly cared to risk injury for.  
  
Except the sound of James Potters' voice.  
  
It really was quite lovely, Lily decided, after a long period of thought. Of course, she had always known it; the idea had just not bothered her before. Nor had his hideous looks. Those annoyingly ugly looks of his were, Lily sighed, quite attractive.  
  
Lily groaned, her stomach shaking violently against her scarlet four-poster. Not only was she doomed to hit that cold stone floor, but she was also doomed to doing so while being the exact replica of every other Hogwarts witch. She was doomed to falling for Potter.  
  
But had she really fallen, she wondered idly. It wasn't really a falling feeling unless you counted the feeling of being hit sharply in the stomach, the feeling of shock. No, Lily Evans felt almost as if she had been lifted up out of a momentary depression. Every time she heard a laugh she wondered if it was his. And her eyes searched constantly for his hazel ones.  
  
And it had all started with that damn journal.  
  
***  
  
*Potter gave me a journal. Why he did it, I don't really know. Why I excepted it, I'm even more confused about. It's not a major gift, of course. It's just an inexpensive diary. So I suppose it's really no trouble on his part . After all, he, is a prat.*  
  
A cute prat.  
  
Lily blinked. Where in all that's hellish had that idea come from? Potter? Cute? Oh, gods. James Potter was arrogant, but certainly not cute.  
  
Just sexy, she decided against her better judgment. Yes, he undoubtedly was sexy. Too sexy.  
  
*And yet why? Why? And may I ask, and why?*  
  
He just was.  
  
***  
  
"Lily," James asked blankly. Twice he snapped his fingers before her face.  
  
Her head lifted to meet his eyes, his gorgeous eyes, the green eyes that swam in brown.  
  
"Lily?" she asked thickly. "Am I Lily?"  
  
He ran a deft hand through his chaotic hair, thereby making it even more wild. His eyes sparkled in delight, and she wondered vacantly if his irises always lit up with golden streaks when he was amused. He was so beautiful standing above her with a cherubic grin and big, bright eyes. His alabaster face was chiseled so delicately, he looked like a god. She wondered if it was a sin to be so lovely.  
  
"You're Lily, yes," he reminded her.  
  
She blinked twice. "Of course."  
  
Damn journal.  
  
There was no point in ever liking him. She wasn't about to kid herself on that matter. She was Lily Evans. He was James Potter. She hated him, even as his beauty unraveled itself further to her, she knew that she hated him because she had no other choice.  
  
So even in the company of Potter, Lily was alone, hidden behind her icy hate.  
  
"C'mon," James said softly. "You're going to get hurt hanging off from your four-poster like that. I'm in shit as is. I don't need a dying Lily on my résumé too." He grinned his pearly grin again, and continued on in a mocking voice, "How am I ever going to become Minister of Magic when I'm a murderer?" Who he was mocking, she didn't know.  
  
Lily smirked. "The same way you've been trying to do as a rapist." She suggested.  
  
He frowned. "Rapist?"  
  
"Yeah, you know, a person that molests little boys and girls."  
  
"And transvestites."  
  
"Of course,"  
  
He paused for a second, his face faintly marred with perplexity. She supposed she understood. It wasn't as if she would remember, were she in his place, a person so pointless as herself, Lily. It was his *right* to forget who she was. It wasn't like she actually mattered.  
  
"You were molesting me in transfiguration last Tuesday." She told him. "You remember, don't you?"  
  
"Molesting? Me? You must have the wrong James Potter."  
  
Lily grinned. "Like hell,"  
  
Being with James was refreshing. She could smile and she could laugh. It wasn't just any person who heard Lily swear, after all. It was Potter, her sworn enemy.  
  
And yet, it was but his name the she hated.  
  
"How," he asked softly, leaning forward and staring straight into her vivid eyes. No one ever did that. "does raping little boys and girls-"  
  
"And transvestites,"  
  
"And transvestites," he agreed. "How does that make me an unfit Minister. It's not as if Fudge would make a better one."  
  
"Fudge?" she questioned.  
  
"Yeah, Fudge, the BHB."  
  
"BHB being Big Head Boy, I suppose. After all, he is Head Boy."  
  
"I thought you didn't know him."  
  
"I'm a prefect, James. Unlike you, I actually *have* to work, and with him no less. How he got to be Head Boy, I've got no clue. He skives off his classes and smokes marijuana."  
  
"Marijuana as in pot? That Muggle drug?"  
  
She purred vaguely in response.  
  
"No wonder he's so stupid."  
  
"Oh, no; he was always quite dense. Drugs just accentuate that feature."  
  
It *was* true. Cornelius Fudge was a stoner. It wasn't obvious how he made his grades, but it was well known that he did. He was top of his class since his first year.  
  
"I'll be running against him in the next campaign." James said, dragging his toe across the stone floor. "I seriously hope that by then he's gained some acumen."  
  
"Or goes to rehab."  
  
"Yeah," he agreed.  
  
Lily sighed. James wasn't the easiest person to talk to. He was shrouded in a mist of intellect, and while that came off to others as pride, she was beginning to think it was fear- a narrow fear of the future and the life that was to come, no doubt, but it was fear all the same. He was facile to read; his eyes said all, but talking to a person you know way too well can be the most intricate act in the world. When talking to him, you could smother yourself in the tricky lies of contentment that coated James like butter, or you could speak the truth you knew he wanted to hear. And yet the decision was so hard for Lily. After all, he was the crush that she hated to her very bones.  
  
"James, why are you doing it?"  
  
He exhaled audibly. "What, Lilia?"  
  
"Lilia?"  
  
"Yeah, ask Sirius."  
  
Sirius Black was James' partner in crime and left-hand man. Why left-hand? Because he wasn't right-handed, said Black. He was a gorgeous boy, much prettier than Potter, but in a difference sense. He was sharp-witted, and warn-natured, and a completely unconventional boy.  
  
"I'll do that."  
  
"So, what, Lilia?"  
  
"Oh," she paused a second, gathering her previous thoughts. "Why are you doing it? You know, trying to rule magical Britain? It's not something you would do. It's a cheater's job; a liar's job. We never are governed by fair sovereigns."  
  
"Why not?" he responded. "You just said it, Lily; we're never governed by the just. I know you don't actually like me, but you know I'm not a bad person, don't you? I'm candid and I'm fair."  
  
"I know,"  
  
She didn't know.  
  
"Lilia," he said abruptly with a soft, flowing passion, "let's go down to the lake."  
  
She nodded.  
  
***  
  
"I don't know why I do it." James said sincerely, while stepping back and then releasing a stone. It skipped perfectly across the surface of the lake, and then disappeared somewhere in the middle. "It's not as if I have reason to. I blew up a toilet once last year. My mother sent me a howler. I know no one thought I cared. I remember I laughed for fuck's sake. I didn't care about the howler. I don't give a rat's ass if a horde of Slytherins snicker at what 'Potty's mummy said'." He shook his head and shouted, "I don't give a damn!"  
  
She nodded her head. She didn't understand him. His antics were amusing, sure, but was there a point?  
  
"What I do give a damn about," he continued. "Is the look my mum gave me at Christmas. It was just a fucking toilet, but she looked as if I'd blown up Hogwarts."  
  
Lily tried not to giggle.  
  
James sighed. "What about you? You've got parents, I assume."  
  
"Yeah," she said softly. "Sort of. My dad died last year."  
  
"Attack on Muggles?" James asking, brushing the thought that Lily did not want to discuss; the Lord Voldemort, darkest wizard of the present day.  
  
"Yeah, but not in the way you're thinking. Daddy died of lung cancer. He smoked too much."  
  
"Cancer?"  
  
"It's a Muggle disease. It's hard to cure. Smoking can cause it."  
  
"Thank god I'm not a Muggle. I couldn't give up my fags if I wanted to."  
  
She nodded in understanding. "I've never smoked because of my dad. Besides, my mum would kill me if she ever found out."  
  
James raised an eyebrow. "She'd never have to know."  
  
Lily shrugged, and nodded in recognition of the truth.  
  
"Don't deny yourself the good things in life." He told her gently, taking out a box of cigarettes and a lighter. "As long as it's not drugs. Or stupidity."  
  
She laughed. "So I can't date Cornelius? Damn."  
  
James distinctly blanched and Lily smiled.  
  
Lighting a cigarette, he passed it to her, and took a seat against the willow beside the lake.  
  
She inhaled the smoky substance, and coughed out an exhale. "Point?" she asked.  
  
"I dunno."  
  
"So we commit suicide without reason."  
  
"No, we give ourselves this cancer of yours and then banish it with magic."  
  
"So there's no point?"  
  
"Only the fun of it."  
  
"So, no point?" she concluded in a persistent tone and he nodded.  
  
"Exactly," he agreed.  
  
"I like that."  
  
Without a point, everything is so much richer, life is so much brighter. Until you see that the absence of that point is going to be your downfall, because despite all your better attempts, there's always going to be a fall. It's always there waiting for you to slip, waiting for you to die, waiting.  
  
And Lily wasn't sure if she cared.  
  
A/N: Finally, I'm starting to get the point! Gods, defiantly finally. This isn't going to be a short story, in case you're wondering. Well, once I edit it, it won't be. Hopefully.  
  
Anyway, I really need to know, did I bring in the whole 'Lily likes James' thing way too fast. It seemed to me while I was writing it that it just came out of nowhere, but it's going to be necessary. The romance is a major plot line. It's not a central issue, exactly, but it can't be long and tortured either. It's supposed to be something that attacks Lily when she's dealing with all the shit that's going on. Obviously, she's going to snap. The question is when?  
  
Thank you to everyone that reviewed. You guys are awesome! You seriously rock my socks (as does Jack Black). Please continue reviewing. And if this is still confusing everyone, tell me EXACTLY how it's confusing. I'll fix it in the next chapter.  
  
So later days,  
  
Hunter 


	7. Lonely Saturation

Chapter 7: Solitary Saturation  
  
* Few know the reason that one will always live one's solitary live. Most question it. And the others just don't care.*  
  
Some say that to be alone is to be lonely. Some say that's untrue. Lily wasn't about to argue with life, but she knew that it didn't matter whether or not you were alone. You could be surrounded by all that is alive and still be alone. She knew that. In a world where life is so easily taken for granted, she didn't matter. That was all it took to be alone. And yet she never had felt lonely.  
  
Lily Evans was not an average child. Nor, for that matter, would she ever believe such an idea was true. She always kept to herself and rarely spoke outside her normal circle of everyday acquaintances she could absolutely not avoid. When James Potter came along, he changed everything. He made her lonely.  
  
*The idea that life is forged by the hand of the author is a universal theory.* Lily slowly wrote in emerald cursive inside her denim journal. She kept the script small, prim, and flowing, hoping the words could be easily read. *However, there is still a singular problem: the identity of the author is not known. Some say god writes our destiny. I just know that I didn't write mine.*  
  
The journal closed with a snap of hands that were not hers.  
  
"You know, Evans, if I knew you wrote so much a wouldn't have given you that damn journal." James said softly, leaning in dangerously close to her. He smelled of soft cinnamon in the early winter. "Your wrist is going to fall off one of these days. You've gotta stop!"  
  
Lily rolled her eyes at his jest, trying hopelessly to hold in a stream of giggles that wanted desperately to escape. Her hair swung over her shoulder, hitting her softly in the face. "I'd really like to be left alone.  
  
"No,"  
  
"Go away," she laughed playfully, allowing herself to smile at his boyish grin.  
  
He shook his head. He really wasn't one to easily comply. At that, he certainly wasn't about to listen to a girl. To James, girls were weaklings meant to be controlled by sex. Lily knew that much, at very least. And yet his hazel eyes continued to sparkle merrily with life, life that she didn't believe she possessed. She didn't understand how that could be possible. He danced on life as if it were a ribbon. She just sat in place.  
  
"Oh, Lily, mate, you intrigue me."  
  
Once again she rolled her eyes. Melodrama was certainly not her forte, and dealing with its master was unquestionably much worse. However, there was one thing worse than the drama of James Potter: the lack thereof. Without his drama king qualities, he wasn't James Potter. Lily wasn't sure when his change in character had come about, but he seemed happier, and that was making her happy.  
  
*When you find yourself in a relationship with Potter,* Lily thought to herself, *You can't just walk out. Your in his grip, and whatever he does, you're along for the ride.* "Lilia," he said, his breath, lover's speech sounding rather Shakespearian. "Milady, wilt thou accompany my loneliness on a walk?" He stuck his arm out as if he were a gentleman.  
  
"You're a sorry old fart, James Potter." She stated, weakly trying to gain composure and burst out in a fit of giggles. Whatever would he think of that? She forced herself not to flush scarlet under his intent gaze, and then, indeed, took his arm.  
  
"We make a lovely couple," he told he jovially, although he quite obviously was not speaking honestly. His slightly roguish grin that was pulling effortlessly at his lips certainly showed as much. "Don't you agree?" he asked.  
  
Lily only shook her head.  
  
"Where are we going?" She asked him. His pace was quick and did not help conversation in the least. She all but ran to keep up, her right hand growing slightly weak with the weight of her journal, her left hand strained from the distance between herself, James, and there haphazardly connected bodies.  
  
"Hogsmeade, of course," he answered.  
  
"B-but that's against the rules!" she spluttered in response. Lily Evans was a proper Catholic with a strict mother, and while she was no saint, she did hold great respect for Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. She did not commonly break his rules. Today was no weekend for gallivanting across school grounds. That was to be saved for Hogsmeade weekends.  
  
But James seemed to pay no mind to Lily's protests, and dragged her along just the same, counting off rapidly what they were to do for the day. "I think we'll see Rosmert. I haven't seen her since graduation. She's a beauty, don't ya think? I wonder how she is? Oh, and Quality Quiditch is in Hogsmeade now! I forgot all about it. We'll have to stop there for a bit. And then we have to get you new clothes- look at the state of those robes! My mum'll never let you over looking like that." Hepaused for good measure, and then added, "Don't worry, Lily Darling, you'll be lovely when I'm done with you. Mum will just love fussing over you!"  
  
Lily, her eyes wide and slightly dazed, stared at him with a gaping mouth. "Who are you, and what the fuck did you do to James?"  
  
"I'm not James!" the boy laughed, "Just a very good impersonation. Wanna see one?"  
  
She didn't answer.  
  
The boy looked at her intently, squinted slightly in the way James did- though Lily could not for the life of her remember when James had ever done such a thing- then stepped back and pulled out a plain, silver lighter and a pack of Marlboros. "What a smoke?"  
  
Lily squinted her own eyes right back at the boy who looked just like Potter. She took a apprehensive step forward with narrowed eyes, and took a cigarette with slender, knowing fingers. "Who are you?" she asked, letting him light the end of the cigarette.  
  
"Sirius Black,"  
  
"Oh," she said. "I should've known."  
  
"Am I a good Prongs?"  
  
She gazed at him, darkly curious. "Prongs?"  
  
"Yes, Prongs, as in your sexual gratifier. You know, shaggy black hair, sorta tall, weirdo eyes. He answers to the name 'James.' Don't ask me why."  
  
"Oh," she said again. "Not really."  
  
"What? I don't get you all hot and bothered like that?"  
  
She blanched. "No,"  
  
"Oh," he said. "Are you sure? I thought I saw you give me a sultry look back there. I was starting to really want to be Prongs." A second later he continued his questioning. "How 'bout I take you to my place and we continue this discussion?"  
  
Lily rolled her eyes. Sirius was rich, just like James. He could have had anything at all, but she was nearly certain he did not have his own 'place' in Hogsmeade. She wasn't sure he was even sixteen. "What place?" she asked skeptically.  
  
"I'm so glad you asked." He exclaimed, lifting her up to twirl her around him. "It's this lovely little four-poster right near the window in a tower of a castle. Great view! We can have a little wine, maybe some dessert."  
  
Lily shook her head, with a half smile on her lips. "No, I prefer not."  
  
"Don't worry; lover-boy won't catch us."  
  
"I'm not dating him."  
  
"Then why the bloody hell not?"  
  
Lily snickered. She had never formally been introduced to Sirius Black. He'd been mentioned to her before in passing, usually by pretty, blonde girls on the lines of, 'did you hear what Sirius did with me last night? Oh, he conjured up a rose, and then he took me to this little teeny-tiny café outside of Hogsmeade, and then we went back to his place, and then he, well, you know, and I, well, you know, and oh my god, he was, like, so sweet!' He always seemed a bit blasé about life, and very funny. And now he seemed gay. He was definitely not what she expected.  
  
"I don't like boys," she said carelessly.  
  
"Then you'll like Rosemerta's tits." He told her. "They're lovely, big, and tan, and-"  
  
"Shut up,"  
  
"Okay,"  
  
They were silent a few minutes. Sirius, still looking exactly like James, and quietly acting like his polar opposite, continued to rush the two down the rolling Scottish hills around them.  
  
"Want a butterbeer." Sirius finally asked.  
  
"I'd rather something stronger."  
  
He grinned. "Lilia, I know just what you need." At that, he ran even faster, physically agile in his movements. Minutes passed, and finally they seemed to stop in front of a Muggle 'detour' sign.  
  
"*Abracadabra!*" he announced loudly. "That's what you Muggles say, isn't it?"  
  
Lily nodded, and before her eyes there was no longer a 'detour' sign, but a wide, black portal of emptiness.  
  
"Step inside,"  
  
She expected to fall into nothingness, forever encased in a black hole, or something along those lines, but when Lily did comply, she found she was not in blackness at all, but a shop filled with witches robes of all the colors she could possibly imagine.  
  
"Now, I told you," Sirius said deeply. "You can't go to a Potter Ball dressed in rags."  
  
Lily glared at the boy indignantly, but said nothing. She set down her journal and began to explore.  
  
Robes of every color seemingly danced out at her. There were cerulean prints and bold magentas, flattering prints, and trashy translucent things that Lily couldn't name, and a great quantity of pastels to match the new Spring season. Quickly, she went for a light green robe, a pretty one with a conservative bust and a cheap price.  
  
"No," Sirius gasped quickly as if in horror. "Absolutely not! They're the Potters; not the Muggle Queen. Be pretty, sexy if you wish. I am here to indulge you're every whim." He paused. "I think I'll have you call me god."  
  
"I'd prefer not," she told him with a curt nod, and grabbing a sky blue robe. It was a silky one.  
  
"Beautiful color, beautiful color, but how about we move over *here*?" He led her away from the pastels toward a much less ladylike section of the store.  
  
Lingerie. More over, very sexy lingerie.  
  
"Er," she started, "Since when am I going to the Potter Mansion?"  
  
Sirius paused. "Since this morning when James said he was going to kiss you on Easter night."  
  
"Oh," she said. "Kiss me?"  
  
"Yes, as in 'slobber on your face and hope you'll not care'."  
  
"And this has to be on Easter?"  
  
"Yep, can 'lil Lilia not wait?"  
  
Lily rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but blush. "And James has to go home fore Easter?"  
  
"Mmhm. Something to do with his campaign. And of course the Potters will have a ball. I'm invited too. And now I'll have to get something pretty to where." He picked up a lacy thong. It was bright pink. "What about this?"  
  
"I hope to god your kidding."  
  
"I'll be," he paused, looking for a good word. "Unique."  
  
"Is that the new word for 'cross-dresser'?"  
  
He shook a finger at her, and began to flip through robes, throwing a few off hangers and throwing them chaotically at her.  
  
She rolled her eyes and they began to shop.  
  
***  
  
Days passed, two maybe more, bringing with them a loss of days before Easter. The winds of change continued to swirl in Lily's head, and she continued to change with them. She had not expected Sirius' words on her appearance at the Potter Mansion to be so blunt.  
  
*James is going to kiss you on Easter night.*  
  
Certainly that couldn't be right. But then, why would she be going to the ball if he wasn't going to kiss her? The truth hit Lily like a cold, brick of cement: he had never invited her.  
  
Longingly, Lily's thoughts went back to the three dress robes Sirius had insisted on buying, and the pretty jade and cobalt day robe she happened to be wearing at that time. It was starting to seem doubtful that James would ever invite her. After all, there were only three more days before Easter Holiday. James was not that's slow.  
  
The two of them, on that particular day, sat beneath the willow tree, the one that slowly wept downward as the day passed. It's lonely limbs hung limply in the murky waters of the lake. Lily hung like the tree's weeping branches over her secrets, silently smothering them. But the more she massacred, the more that killed her soul. Yet James did not notice. He was much too entwined with his own thoughts.  
  
The sun sat before them, playing a single last romantic scene  
  
"James," she said voicelessly. "Is there joy in loneliness?"  
  
He shrugged in a tired fashion and slumped further down against the tree. "Why's it matter?"  
  
"Dunno. Just wondering."  
  
"I wouldn't suppose so," he told her. His eyes were shut.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"That's the point of being lonely, isn't it? You're alone."  
  
She shook her head vigorously. "You can be alone and be happy. I know that. It wasn't what I asked. Being lonely is actually feeling alone. But it can be so deep that it makes you cold in your bones. Sometimes, I wonder if happiness exists too, just as deep down. I want to know if that kind of happiness is really more that skin-deep."  
  
James shot her an odd look, raising a straight black eyebrow. "I don't know how you mean."  
  
"You can't be serious. Haven't you ever felt lonely?"  
  
James sighed. "I really can't recall." His eyes opened, but still remained so empty.  
  
She took his answer, though still feeling as if she was drowning in her sorrow. At that moment, she knew she'd give anything, anything at all to free her sins. Even James.  
  
***  
  
The early April air stung her bare arms despite her better attempts at a warming charm. It should have been warm in the Gryffindor Common Room. It so seldom was so icy, and lily's skin prickled in the darkness.  
  
The room shone in an eerie blue glow, shifting her auburn hair into silver- black. She didn't really mind.  
  
*If I could have anything,* Lily wrote blindly through the blurry dark onto a page of her journal. *I'd want to be the sunlight that streams into my room in the morning. The light's so warm, and empty as if it could last forever. It's so cold in the darkness. It's so cold.* Deep inside her thoughts, she knew she could never let herself be happy, and as long as she felt her solitude so deeply.  
  
Slowly, she shut the denim notebook, leaning down just as it shut to trace a duo of words on to the cover. *Always May.*  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
A/N: Hello, people, my freaky-deaky pals. Finally I have updated. I know it took me forever. Actually, like two days ago, I found my story on someone's favorite stories list. I was looking for something completely different, and I couldn't find it anywhere on the sit, and voila. My story sat before my very eyes. I could have kissed them. Sadly, I lost their name, and I don't believe they have reviewed my story. Oh, well. Thanks anyway. You got me to update, whoever you are.  
  
Sorry I made Sirius so live in such a sugar-induced craziness of absolute homosexuality. I know it's rather cliché. Anyway, please review.  
  
You know that little blue box loves you,  
  
Hunter 


	8. Lost Wishes

Chapter 8: Lost Wishes  
  
"Every life knows when they are about to die; it is an instinct that can be clearly felt in one's stomach. However, a broken heart is much harder to foresee."  
  
It was not until Friday, Good Friday, that Lily woke to the excruciating sound of teeth grinding against each other, one side to the other, one side to the other. James Potter sat on her feet, marking them as his own with his weight. Her scarlet sheets had been thrown off her, one after one, leaving her bare and almost nude for the whole world to see.  
  
Rubbing her eyes in fatigue, she glanced at the clock. A distinct scowl overtook her soft features as she sat. "Potter," she said, dangerously sure of just who's mass was squashing her dainty ankles. "I do realize you have a flare for the dramatic, but it's four bloody a.m.!"  
  
He rolled his shoulders over into a slouch and then straightened back up. "Yeah, you should be sleeping, shouldn't you?" No air of shame resonated in his voice, and yet Lily sensed an odd sadness lying hidden between the lines.  
  
"Yes," she growled.  
  
"It's a damn shame. You look so pretty in your sleep."  
  
Lily, herself, now ground her own teeth. She was not one for early wake-up calls, and while she would admit that she did indeed find James Potter to be rather dashing, she was not particularly fond of his tactics as an alarm clock. Quiditch, he could do. Girls, apparently not. Now that was a damn shame.  
  
"You know, Lily, I did not invite you for Easter for you to stay in your dorm all weekend. The train laves in an hour."  
  
Lily fell back down to her soft, feather pillow, but his words had struck a chord that was now echoing in the back of her mind.  
  
James is going to kiss you on Easter night.  
  
She was now very much awake.  
  
"The train?" she asked, vaguely aware of how sly James' deception was. And just how probing her question truly was. James Potter had it all planned out, right from the moment he told Sirius Black his plan, and Lily wasn't dumb enough not to know it. He knew that she knew. It was all too obvious.  
  
"Yeah, it's that thing that takes us to King's Cross. It's bright red. You know that thing?" He nodded to give his words emphasis and then grinned. "Lilia, I invited you to meet my parents. Are you coming or not?" His words were not harsh, but they hit her coldly just the same.  
  
"I'm," she paused. "meeting your parents?"  
  
He sighed, sliding off her, gaining more weight as he came to accept her attitude. "Don't worry, Lily. They'll like you. Why wouldn't they?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
He gave her leg a reassuring pat. "C'mon. We leave at five."  
  
And with that he left, leaving Lily to continue her thoughts on conspiracy.

* * *

The crimson train sat at Platform 9 and ¾. It was a warm day, it's breezy wind circling Lily into a magic trance. The sun shone brightly, though half hidden by clouds, and yet Lily felt a sense of foreboding she had not felt for quite awhile.  
  
Thinking back, her mind came to rest on her denim notebook that sat silently in her trunk, waiting to be set free. Her earlier words of the day had not been that of bitterness, but that of joy.  
  
James is going to kiss me. And I'm going to kiss him back.  
  
A light tap could be felt on the girl's shoulder, catching her off guard.  
  
"Lily Evans?" a girl asked. Her sweet, melodious voice rang through the air. She was hardly more that a little girl, maybe eight, nine years old. She had raven hair of silk and big brown-green eyes. "I'm Muri Potter."  
  
"Muriel!" a boy's voice called, a voice sounding suspiciously like James. "Muriel!" James' voice yelled once more before he haphazardly ran toward the two girls, sweeping the young one into his arms. He grinned, and as he did so a youthful light shone through his entire aura. "Gods, I missed you."  
  
Lily couldn't help but smile. It was rare to see James so happy. He looked so much more like the James she once knew, the James Potter she had not thought of for many a year.  
  
The mystic memories of the past came rushing back to Lily full force, like waves pulling her down further and further until she found her resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic. Potter's face swan inside her brain, his lips closer and closer to hers, the years slowly melting until all he was, was a small, scared, eleven-year old boy, holding her hand and dreaming of adventures in far-off lands.  
  
"Lily, love!" James' voice sounded, waking her from her dizzy reverie.  
  
"No, Mum, don't make me go with him! He likes pink bunny slippers!" her own, frightened voice replied.  
  
And then all that was to be heard was deep, heart-felt laughing. Lily could do nothing but stare but stare wide-eyed at the boy before her, still shaken from her drowning thoughts. The light now blinded her, and she felt leaden on her feet. There was nothing that sounded more satisfying than collapsing right then and there and never ever getting again of the platform.  
  
James' laughter finally died, and with it so did a part of Lily.  
  
"Muri, this lunatic is Lilia Evans." Grinning, he leaned forward and cupped the small girl's ear as if to tell a secret. Whispering loudly, he continued. "Don't be pretty by the pretty façade; she's really quite evil." He turned to look at Lily, grinning at her, and lowering his voice slightly. "She likes to suck Potter blood."  
  
Muriel Potter turned a ghastly shade of pale white, and ran off in what Lily hoped she could only assume was the direction of her parents.  
  
Lily turned to face James straight on, adjusting her dainty self to look more threatening, although really doing a rather goon impression like Professor McGonagall, Hogwarts' most austere teacher. Her small hands sat in fist on her hips, and a tight-lipped expression had fallen over her face. She had fixed him with her best glare that only intensified when James' lip quivered in response.  
  
"So," James began, shockingly nervous. "She's something, isn't she?"  
  
"Yes, she is."  
  
A moments silence covered them, and yet Lily's gaze only intensified and her posture only became straighter.  
  
"It's really too bad that she thinks I'm a vampire."  
  
James gulped.  
  
"Well," he said. "You know, after that time you bit my tongue, I'd really started to think you liked it, you know, my blood that it."  
  
Lily grinned maliciously. "I did."  
  
James met her stare more coldly, but a vague smile stole his lips.  
  
"You really shouldn't kiss girls when they call you a toe-rag."  
  
"Oh, but Lilia, it was in second year."  
  
"Exactly," she told him, licking away the smile that was fighting to form. "It was such a long time ago."  
  
"I had to shut you up somehow."  
  
"Toe-rag,"  
  
"Bitch,"  
  
Lily suppressed a snicker and tore her vibrant eyes from the murky depths of James'. Shaking her head, she began to walk off in the direction Muriel had gone in. "Bite me," she called back over her shoulder.  
  
Though she never saw it, Potter grinned broadly. "Now that can be arranged."

* * *

The Potter Manner was a white stone mansion built in 1682 for the heir of Merlin, the last of a great line of Ministers of Magic. Built to be more of a castle than a house, it was a labyrinth of secrets and royal accommodations. To the naked eye, however, in the late1960's, it was just a white oddity in gray neighborhood. To Lily, However, it was heaven.  
  
As it turned out, the Potter's had not come to meet their son at the train station. Mr. Alec Potter was a big shot member of the Ministry of magic, something to do with law, James had once told Lily. Mrs. Potter was an up-and-coming art photographer. According to the Potter siblings, both led very busy lives. As it was, it was ten after one p.m. that Lily found herself stumbling out of a large, rather blackened hearth and into a harsh, white room to meet James Potter who happened to be banging on his chest and claiming to have swallowed a doxy.  
  
"Now, isn't that cute?" she asked with a grin. Who it was that she was asking, she didn't know. "I'd imagined that you could look no more like an animal than you already do," She raised her palms in a smug shrugging of her shoulders. "But then- what's this?- here you are, James, looking exactly as I would have visualized a gorilla. Life is just too kind."  
  
James shot her a cold glare, still coughing half-heartedly.  
  
"My 'rents aren't home." he said.  
  
She raised a cool eyebrow.  
  
"And here I was thinking they were invisible. Silly me."  
  
The boy grunted.  
  
Despite herself, Lily just couldn't find it within herself to be kind to him at all times. After all, to do so would be suspicious at very least, and Lily most certainly did not want James Potter thinking she was in love with him. Being friends was bad enough. Love was much further than she wanted to go, if she could ever fall in love with him.  
  
Mumbling hurriedly to herself, she brushed off her white-blue robe. It wasn't the time for reflection.  
  
"Master James!" said a small voice, hardly taller than her knees.  
  
Looking down she found the words to have come from a creature, hardly the size of its voice. It wore little garb, though all that it wore was imprinted with what Lily could only assume was the Potter crest. It hugged James' knees tightly, as if trying to strangle the wrong part of his body to find the due fatal outcome.  
  
"Potter," Lily began skeptically. "What's that?"  
  
"'Tis only Dinky," the creature said, bowing until his long nose hit his feet.  
  
In the background Lily could hear James snickering in the background. As if unaware of the creature, he began to mumble. "As in 'dinky little house elf who needs to do a little Irish jig.'" He coughed a few times and then added a little, "Get lost, Dinky. And get me an éclair while you're at it."  
  
The little elf scrambled off in the direction of the large, ornate kitchen.  
  
"James! Could you have been any ruder?"  
  
James smiled broadly, though looking thoroughly confused. "Yeah, okay, Lilia. Hey, Dinky, little house elf who need to do a little Irish jig, get back in here!"  
  
Dinky scampered over his own feet and back into the room. "Yes, Master James?" He handed James a pastry.;  
  
James gave Lily a curt nod and then a large bite of the éclair. "You are a dinky little thing. Show Lily her room."  
  
She shot a glare at the black-headed boy. "Charming," Said Lily, following the quickly moving elf out of the room.  
  
As the two headed west from the living room, leaving James and his cruel remarks, James' words haunted Lily's mind. She had nOT seen such a side of the rather tranquil, quite dramatic boy IN MANY A Y. He was a prankster to the bone when he had been younger, Lily knew, often having been the outlet of James' malicious energy. If it had not been for the slime she had been covered with for the first two weeks of first year, she might have had more friends. The slime had made James and Sirius Black legendary, but in her book, they were terrible, terrible boys. But Lily had thought the boys had grown up years before, when James had first asked her out in fifth year; apparently it was all for the joy of torturing her. He had not cared for her, not for a very, very long time. Were things really so different now? Had James Potter really grown up? Her eyes fell to the awkward creature below. Apparently not.  
  
"I'm sorry," she offered weakly.  
  
Dinky looked on, confused. "Dinky doesn't understand. Miss Lily hasn't hurt Dinky."  
  
Lily took a breath and clarified herself. "I'm sorry for James."  
  
Dinky sighed. "Dinky doesn't talk about that."  
  
"Well, I'm sorry anyway."  
  
"'Tis a house elf's job."  
  
The air around then remained silent as they continued on. The wooden floor did not squeak. The suits of armor did not sing the jolly, slightly marred, carols of James and Sirius and there magical olden knights. The Potter Manor was still.  
  
For now.  
  
A/N: Yeah, this was probably a little confusing. I'm setting up some over- used clichés, and yes, I realize that was rather redundant. Anyway, click the little blue button if you have questions. Review anyway. Please. 


	9. Spring's Warmth

Chapter Nine: Spring's Warmth  
  
Even the altruistic soul has an aspect of selfishness that no man of ordinary circumstance can every wholly contemplate. It is secret to even the most lavish heart just how inhumane our race has become, for it is key to our destiny.  
  
Lily's room was a godly place, very pretty, very elegant. She couldn't quite place the spirituality of the room to any particular memory, nor could she remember ever feeling such purity, such innocence, as the room offered in its simplicity, but she knew it in herself, and if she did not know it, she understood it. It was in her bones, not quite coating her sadness, but giving her a light to her dark, a balance. She felt less like herself and more as she wished to be. She felt like the girl who lost her virginity to a priest, and yet she felt a sanctity within her that was surprisingly forceful. She understood its ramifications, its power, but did not quite comprehend its derivation. She felt as if she was real. She felt as if she could take on the entire world and still come out unscathed. She felt as if she was alive.  
  
The past faded away around her until all that was left was her and the room, her and divinity.  
  
Blinking in her emotions, she studied the room in silence. It was a classic room in its candid appearance, but certainly was not plain in its elegance. White surrounded her, enticing her with its righteousness. Light wood tantalized the room with a decadent flair. Her bed sat in the corner, golden white, drawing her in, ready to envelope her in sleep, taking away her pain, her bitterness, her cold.  
  
Warm sheets took her in, barely allowing her to miss the white tiger lily sleeping upon the left pillow.

* * *

Her sleep was soundless, beautiful. She did not wake until the hours fell upon her with deep twilight. She woke alone, half cold. She disguised her pain quickly with a pretty jade robe. Its satiny feel made her feel so beautiful, so much less like herself. It gave her a lie to hide her soul.  
  
She twirled herself into a presentable condition, perfecting her make-up and hair in a girly fashion of paranoia. She had never had a mother to giggle with, or trust with secrets. She had never expected herself to need one. She fancied herself to be a tortured artist, thriving for solitude. But she had no art. Her fanciful life was not at all her reality, and her needs in her fantasy were far from similar to her true life. She needed stability, love. She needed friends. She needed hope.  
  
James is going to kiss you Easter night.  
  
In the end, she needed Potter. Of course, she'd never admit it to him. In all the withering comments of their past, of all the caring glances she knew he cast her way, in all his cocky grins, in all her sadness, in his big hazel eyes, she had lost all her will to be loved by James Potter.  
  
Their history was not altogether unlike the interaction between oil and water. She was cold, harsh, seemingly very real water. And he was slick, smooth, pretentious oil. They never had mixed. The never could. But if she changed, if she was no longer water, if she was no longer icy and bitter and sad, would they? Would Lily find her comfort in James' arms? Could she?  
  
She didn't want to believe her thoughts. Sexy as he was, James was not her match. But he'd kiss her anyway. That much she was positively sure of. And then she'd kiss him back. It was really all too simple. But nothing could truly be simple when merged with Lily Evans.  
  
She stumbled down into the main room, the suffocating one in which she had first been introduced to the Potter Manor. But no life existed. And so she found herself trailing through the halls, half lost, half filled with an insatiable curiosity. Rooms passed, each holding a very different aura. And then the Potters appeared, each sated with an intense form of joy.  
  
And so it came to Lily that joy could be seen but not felt in her coldness. Like oil and water, she thought.  
  
James' eyes finally met hers, after ages of a burning torture that she couldn't quite explain. It felt as if her heart had just broken and she didn't know why. His eyes were drowning in warmth. She just didn't understand. She couldn't.  
  
"Lily, there you are," he said so quietly, as if he were only speaking to himself. He clenched his hands, then unclenched them, his eyes never leaving hers, and then he broke their gaze. "I almost woke you up, but you looked so," he paused, so painfully obvious in his lack of confidence in his wording. "Peaceful." He finished.  
  
She gave him a curt nod, and squinted her eyes in gratitude, hoping he'd understand. Of course, it didn't matter if he took her apology. It wasn't as if he could chuck her of his house onto the cold ground, bruising her. He wasn't likely to, at least. He gave her a warmer nod of understanding in return and a small smile.  
  
"Lily, this is my family." He told her, spreading his arms out to show just who 'this' was. "My mom, dad, and you know Muri." He spared a grin Lily's way. "She and I had a little talk. She says that if you're not going to suck her blood, then she won't run away again."  
  
She placed a large, plastered smile, coated with gloss, upon her lips, sweeping the floor with her robe as she glided forward. She reached out to shake Mr. Potter's large hand. "How do you do?"  
  
"Fine," he said with a smile as he shook his wayward ash blonde hair from his glasses that covered his big green-brown eyes. He seemed so much like James. Almost too much.  
  
Mrs. Potter sat daintily looking on with a knowing smile upon her lips and her stormy eyes half on James. She looked so lovely in a way Lily only wished to be. Her raven hair brushed back and forth, so gorgeous.  
  
"It's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for allowing me to be here." Lily whispered to the darkly mysterious woman.  
  
She gave her a warm smile, pulling herself weightlessly from the couch and pulling Lily into a lady-like hug, then kissed each of her cheeks, than said in such a pretty voice, "No, darling, it's my pleasure. James has never brought home a girl before, and certainly not such a pretty one." She took Lily's cold hands in her warm ones pulling herself away, eyeing her in a way that gave Lily the distinct impression that James' mother was quite possibly part hawk. "Let me get a better look at you, darling. Ooh," she squealed. "You're gorgeous! That hair, those eyes! I was such an ugly child, wasn't I, Alec?"  
  
Mr. Potter refused to answer, only allowing himself to raise a goblet of pumpkin juice to his lips, tilt his head to the side, and give his wife a smiling look through his wire-frame glasses.  
  
"You're very sweet, thank you." Lily told her.  
  
"My James says you are top of your class with him. Smart and beautiful. That is a terribly dangerous combination, dear." She shot James a sharp look, and dropped Lily's hands. "But, oh, son, I believe you have done well."  
  
Lily gave her what must have seemed like a very odd look. "I'm not his girlfriend."  
  
"Of course not," Mrs. Potter said, her tone nonchalant, and a small smile playing on her lips. Her smile turned warmer, and she clutched Lily's hands once more, a bit of energy ran between them, and the woman smile even brighter. "Where are my manners?" she exclaimed. "I'm Brenna of Fae-"  
  
"Stop deluding yourself, mum!" James teased.  
  
"Brenna Fae Potter." She corrected herself. "And my husband, "she gestured towards her husband. "Alec Potter. I suppose you've met Muriel already? Yes, you have. Well, then, I must be off to make dinner," she paused with a small at her husband. "For once, darling. I promise not to burn it." She gave Lily's hands another small squeeze and dropped them, turning on her heel and squealing loudly. "Oh, I love cooking!" Her noir pumps clicked effortlessly away.  
  
The room began to clear, Muri shooting Lily a look of suspicion and then running to catch up with her mother. Then James' father left, giving Lily an appraising smile before scooping up a copy of The Daily Prophet and heading in the opposite direction, surprising her by waving his wand at the eastern wall and then walking through it. And then it was only James and Lily.  
  
"So," Lily began.  
  
"So," he said. "I'm," he paused seeming slightly disgruntled. "I'm sorry about earlier."  
  
"Yeah, I was a bitch, wasn't I?"  
  
James cocked his head in a sorry sort of way, not agreeing, not disagreeing, not apologizing again. He held his head high in it's awkward tilt, but Lily knew what he was saying. 'Yeah, but I was worse.'  
  
Lily let her head nod up, and then down, and then the slow silence fell. Quietness surrounded her, leading Lily to take a step forward.  
  
James is going to kiss you, James is going to kiss you, James is going to kiss you, James is going to kiss you, she pressed herself into his chest. Not quite a hug, but personal, too personal for Lily. She stepped away, without dignity and the silence finally broke.  
  
"I like your mother."  
  
"So do I."  
  
"She really loves you."  
  
"So do I."  
  
Lily shook her head, with a grin she did not at all like. "Well, she thinks I'm beautiful, gorgeous actually,"  
  
"So do I."  
  
Her eyes met his in a classic moment of vulnerable helplessness before she looked away. He gave her a quiet nod, drawing her into his arms, but he looked so sad, so sad in a way she couldn't understand. Why did he look so heartbroken, as if the world was cracking beneath him, and he could cry a thousand rivers of tears, and still not have cried enough? He was the boy who could do anything, wasn't he? He was to be Minister of Magic, for god's sake. Somewhere along the line, he had become everything to her, and she didn't really mind because he was the boy who kept her real. And it was then that she knew, only then that she finally understood that she had fallen in love with him. Fallen in love, words she never thought were real, only fairy tale words for the imagination, like god, and heaven. And yet she had fallen in love with the only boy she had ever hated, the only boy she knew was perfect.  
  
"James-"  
  
He shook his head. "Don't speak, love," he told her, gently bringing her chin up with knowing fingers. His other hand brushed back a stray piece of auburn hair that shone red in the firelight. There was depth in those fingers, a passion, a beauty she'd always known was there but never had the audacity to name. He leaned in, closer, closer, his lips were so, so close, his breath was on her face, mint and cinnamon, so powerful, so James.  
  
"James," she repeated, but if he heard her, he didn't let on because his lips were on hers. So soft, so soft she wasn't sure they really were there. Life vanished into a lifeless black hole, and all that was left was Lily, and James, and eternity. And then he took her hand and led her away.  
  
The Potter family was perfect to the naked eye. The children were well loved, the parents loved each other. Debate did not exist in the house. James and Muri had never, ever fought in the past nine years. Alec and Brenna had not fought in James' seventeen years. The house was their protection from all evil. The war did not effect them. The Potters were untouchable. Lily did not understand; she had never been loved, but just seeing something she had never fully believed in was oh, so refreshing. It was in the Potter Mansion that Lily Evans finally felt loved.  
  
She woke late that night in the arms of James Potter. Mind you, she was fully clothed, but she could feel his bare chest against her body, radiating warmth, radiating reality. It was so cold on the bare, wooden floor of her room, but he made that inconsequential. She fell back into him, and he moaned. He was so warm, so good, so wonderful, so perfect. He was her only friend. He was her only enemy. He was her James.  
  
"Who are you, James?" she whispered into the night. But she knew it didn't matter who he was because she loved him, and he made her warm.  
  
And yet he was supposed to kiss her on Easter night. This was all wrong. She had gone through the image a thousand times already in her head. Darkness was surrounding them, no stars in the sky, she was him and he was her, and passion echoed through all of her being. A kiss to rival all kisses, her first kiss. But even that wasn't right, for she had been kissed before. Alex. He took away her soul. And James. He gave her back substance. But she wanted more. She wanted perfection.  
  
It did not even come to mind that James, her James, was the epitome of perfection.  
  
"Why are you so sad?" his voice asked her, so quiet in the darkness. "Why are you so sad, Lily?  
  
"Why does the light bow down to darkness?" she asked in her reply slightly breathless with shock. But he had struck a sharp note in her that few had struck before. 'Why are you so sad?' It was a reasonable question. But it didn't matter. Here she was, surrounded by purity, surrounded by James, and he wanted to know why she could not feel, could not be. It did not matter, and yet mattered more than all the world, all at once. Just like her reply.  
  
He cocked his head as if in disbelief. But he shook it away, and continued calmly. "But it doesn't, Lily. Not really. Light bows down to darkness only because darkness fears even the slightest sliver of light."  
  
While that was all very true, Lily couldn't help but feel there was much below the surface of his answer.  
  
"What happened to us, James? We used to be so much more."  
  
James supplied her with a light chuckle, and drew her closer into his arms, adjusting himself against the bed's edge into more of a sitting position. His shoulders, however, slumped slightly in defeat. He took her face in his hands, once again, and kissed her lightly on each eye, right and left, and then her lips. "We're more than you know."  
  
She shook her head. Oh, how he did not understand! They were happy once. Now, though, even in her own little haven of divinity, she could feel her sadness deep inside her, threatening her eyes to tear. "We were friends, do you remember. It was so long ago, before Hogwarts. Years have passed, but I know it's still there. It was only one day, but that day was so wonderful. Do you not remember. I was so mad when you deserted me on the train." She shook her head and gave him a small smile. "But boys'll be boys, and damn them when they do."  
  
James laughed. "You're a bitter old hag, you know?"  
  
She spared him a small nod, and leaned further into him, closing her eyes and welcoming sleep. And what a peaceful sleep it was.

* * *

"Well, Brenna," Lily began to say early Sunday morning, two days after her arrival. "It's really isn't always quite that restricting. My own mother never let me be in two feet of a non-Catholic as child. I never really minded until I came to Hogwarts. But that's ancient history now."  
  
Brenna smiled widely and squinted her eyes, just like James would have. "Isn't hat the truth, darling." She busied herself with the eggs on the stove, waving her wand here and there. Plates flew in beautiful circles around Lily, and Brenna stepped back behind a big, black camera on a large tri-pod. "Smile, Lil!" she said through her girlish giggles, and when Lily did smile, it was beautiful. A bright blue light flashed through the wonderfully decorated kitchen.  
  
"Tell me, darling," Brenna asked as she circled her camera to adjust its position. "are you close with your mother now?"  
  
"Oh, no, not really. She isn't the kind of woman one can talk to. She has the most absurd notions about religion involving teenagers. She thinks they should all be isolated from the entire world, locked up in their houses. Then they'll never have sex, or do drugs, or do anything. Gods, I'm glad I'm at Hogwarts for the year. My sister, however, wasn't so lucky. She hates me for it. She's nineteen now, an adult in the eyes of society for three years, in the eyes of the law for a year alone. For six years, she was locked in our house, studying chemistry and history and maths. Her fiancé in a good catholic man. Supposedly." Lily clenched her eyes shut, furiously wiping away the tears that were forming. She couldn't do this. She couldn't cry. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I shouldn't be laying my troubles on you. I'm lucky. I got out."  
  
"Yes," Brenna said, sweeping Lily into her arms. "Yes, you did. Just not soon enough. But these are all life lessons that will help you in the years to come. They will strengthen you, and give you truth that no one else will have. In the mean time," she shot Lily a kind, rather conspiratorial smile. "I will be your mother. And Muriel will be your sister. Isn't that right, Muri?" she asked the small, fatigued girl over her shoulder as Muri made her way down the stairs. Brenna tapped her temple with a secretive smile. "Mother knows all."  
  
Muri gave a little nod of her head, and then James bounded down after her, scooping the girl into his arms.  
  
"What's this we're talking of?"  
  
"Amos Diggory," Brenna said, not missing a beat.  
  
James gave a groan.  
  
"What?" she asked. "I see nothing wrong with Amos. He's quite good looking." She paused and then pointed at Lily. "Just like his father. That man was-"  
  
"Mum," James interrupted. "Pleeeeeassse, spare me the girl talk."  
  
Brenna Potter continued on, undaunted "-was as handsome as they come. Mmm, he was a good kisser too."  
  
Lily's eyes tried desperately to find James', but he refused to look up from the pumpkin juice he was pouring into a small, silver goblet. So she looked back at Brenna, faintly blushing.  
  
"Let me tell you something about love, Lily." Brenna said, obviously not having missed the Lily's glance at her son. "Once you find it never let go. But first make sure he can kiss. That's the telling factor. If a man can't kiss, he's not worth your time. But then, if I'd have married Amos, I wouldn't have my James." She gave James a sloppy kiss on the side of his forehead. "I wouldn't go on without my James."  
  
"Mum!" James gasped, spilling pumpkin juice down his robes. Grabbing his wand, he uttered a cleansing spell. Nothing happened. He tried the spell again. "Damn," Nothing happened this time either. James Potter looked positively dumbfounded.  
  
Brenna chuckled, and took away the stick. "It's a fake James. You can't get in trouble with it this time. No more magic out of school! The ministry is getting stricter by the day. Soon they'll be expelling students who do magic outside of Hogwarts. Once you pass the exam, you can use your wand. Until then, absolutely not."  
  
"But, mum-"  
  
"Don't 'but mum' me, James. And watch your mouth around your sister."  
  
Lily giggled until James shot her a deathly glare. Only then did Lily laugh harder. She certainly was used to being ordered around by her mother, but watching James be told what to do, and seeing him actually listen, was very different. It was quite hilarious, actually.  
  
"Yes, mum,"  
  
"Good," Brenna said, giving her wand a sharp jerk leading all the plates to crash onto the table, food and all. Another blue flash washed through the kitchen from the camera. Brenna swore under her breath, and began to inspect it for any malfunction.  
  
"Has daddy left already?" Muri asked, sitting down at the end of the table, as far as possible from Lily.  
  
"Yes, dear, before I even woke. And it's Easter too. I don't understand who those Ministry men think they are, not allowing families to be together on Easter. But those attacks keep getting more frequent, so quite obviously there are more Death Eaters joining Voldemort's cause. I suppose they need all the men they have, and more by the day."  
  
Lily and James sat down, side by side.  
  
"Death Eaters?" Lily asked. "That term is foreign to me."  
  
James' tone was deeply serious when he spoke, and Lily could sense a deeply underlying sadness through it. "Voldemort's henchmen, his disciples, per ce. Horrible men, they are. They kill for the sake of killing. They torture the innocent, and hate all Muggles. Just like Voldemort."  
  
"I'd always thought Voldemort worked alone, powerful, but stoppable."  
  
"No," James said. "Bloody ministry is censoring the papers. You probably don't know a thing about the war, not anything real anyway, Lily. Voldemort's got a whole army of his own, trolls, giants, werewolves, vampires, men, all the foulest of creatures. No one knows anything. I don't even know that much. Only the aurors know the whole truth. Only the aurors are brave enough to fight. And then Dumbledore. I want to be an auror."  
  
"As Minister, you'll outdo even the aurors." said Brenna.  
  
"Do you really think for one minute that it is the Minister of Magic controlling the aurors? The aurors know all. And they are the ones that must bare the burden. Like Alastor Moody, Mad-Eye that is, do you think he would tell just anyone all the ways to stop a man trying to kill you. No! Brilliant as he is, he'll never get over being held at wandpoint by wizards and witches whose only intent is to kill him. There are things he will never tell a soul, not even the Minister of Magic. So excuse me if I don't think I can do a goddamn thing as Minister that I couldn't do as an auror." James paused. "C'mon, Lily. We'll be back later mum."

* * *

"So you want to be an auror." Lily said quietly. It was more or a statement than a question. "You never told me that."  
  
"I never told anyone that."  
  
"Really now," she said with a smile. "Then we're making progress.  
  
"With what?"  
  
"With whatever it was that led you to kiss me last night."  
  
He gave her a sad smile, and sat down on a bench in the middle of Diagon Alley. "I'm sorry about that."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I dunno,"  
  
She paused, brushing her hair from her eyes. "You were sad last night. Why?"  
  
He shrugged his shoulders, and then reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. "Need one?" he asked as he pulled out one for himself. He caught her gaze.  
  
"Don't smoke," she implored almost silently.  
  
He shot her another glance that said so little, and yet it asked so much of her. 'Why?' But she couldn't come up with a reason. There was a warmness settling in her bones that she had never before known. It was so very distracting.  
  
"Because I care now."  
  
A/N: I'm sorry it's been such a long time. The next chapter should be out soon, that one being the end of part one. PLEASE REVIEW!  



	10. May's Rain

Chapter Ten: May's Rain 

&The problem with light is that it always must go out. The nature of romance is much the same.&

&My life is more unimaginable in this house than I can even begin to explain. For the first time in my life I can honestly say that love, true fairytale love, exists. Never before could I say that.

There is a warmth in this house that I am not at all familiar with, and a beauty, sweet and light, is in that warmth that I cannot at all understand. I can only assume that warmth, and the beauty within it, is love.

Of course, I cannot be quite sure of this. All I know is that a sense of happiness has settled in my bones. I cannot imagine I should ever be the same again.&

Lily ran her thumb along the center of the notebook, allowing the pages to rumple and then straighten beneath her touch. Half her denim journal had been filled now with her stories, comedic and tragic. She could see the passion, the red-hot emotion, in the pages, and so she wished to feel all that emotion, all of it, all at once within her heart. She imagined such a force would cause her whole body to burst. To Lily, this would be an honorable death.

The lights flickered around her, and she closed the book the book with a soft snap. James was all too heavy in the air to write out her soul. His cologne ensnared her senses, and his joy controlled her mind. All that existed to her was James. He was everywhere. She could not escape him; she really didn't want to.

She flung one of the bed's larger pillows over her head as if to hide herself from him. And then she sighed.

She wasn't really sure when it had come to pass, or how it had done so, but James had come to be the only constant in Lily's life. She wasn't used to such a presence, and in truth, it frustrated her in the depths of sleepless nights, but at the same time, she never wanted him to leave her. She couldn't explain the feeling. It was if her heart had splattered onto a dozen jagged rocks from high up in the heavens. If that were so, he would be the sun, ever calling her to wake up, his voice almost hoarse with silence. What it came down to was that James was hers and she was his. That fact was inescapable. He was her first love, and she had come to believe she was his as well. She believed herself unable to forget him.

"Lily, guests'll be arriving in an hour," he warned her from his slouching place in the doorway.

She nodded her head, hoping he would understand. &Yes,& a simple answer that she just couldn't allow herself to say. She could not speak. She felt entrapped in him. She felt cold and entrapped. It was all so simple, and yet so intensely complex. She couldn't walk away from James Potter, and yet it was all she could imagine herself doing.

"Are you gonna go?"

She nodded once again in reply.

James, himself, nodded as well. Smiling at her, the girl with long red hair and a beautiful face almost hidden beneath a lacy, white pillow, he said one more word. "Good,"

Once again, she did not reply. She only allowed him to lie down against her petite form, and smile in content. Lily curled up into his warmth.

"You really should get up."

Lily sighed, letting her mind overcome her pride. She pulled the pillow off of her head and gave him a more distinguishable nod. "Yeah," she said. "I know,"

He smiled, flattening himself more to be at her level. "Lily, do you want to go?"

She shrugged. "I guess. I fancy myself one for trying new things."

"Ahhh," he replied with a intoxicating grin. His eyes were lit up with a mischievous air and his face shone with a dulled joy. "You've never been to a Potter Ball. I had forgotten."

"Well, as you had forgotten, I believe now you have remembered, it is the time for you to clue me in on whatever ghastly rituals that are to take place this evening, and if we are to be allowed alcohol."

"You didn't tell me you were into the booze and snooze crowd. You'll find a few kindred spirits tonight."

Lily smiled. "Very funny,"

"And do any of these 'ghastly rituals' of yours include you, me, and your very pretty bed, 'cause if they do, I'm game." James' grin became evermore striking.

Lily tried did not answer for a moment. She had expected this topic to come up some day. However, she had expected more of a serious tone to the conversation, and she had most certainly planned it to be much further into the future. Although she knew that sex with James would be beautiful, she was tired of the pain one night with Alex had caused her, still was causing her. She wasn't ready to give that part of her to James Potter. She couldn't take anymore pain. She sighed and answered, "I believe they would then include a charge of rape, Potter." She tried to grin, as if she was joking, but he already knew that she wasn't.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

Lily nodded once more. "Don't you always?" she asked with an ironic smile. She inhaled, and exhaled, and then blinked twice. "James, I think you should go. I need to get dressed. Like Sirius said, I can't go to a Potter Ball in rags. It's unsuitable."

"Sirius?"

"Yeah, he and I talked a few days back. Now go."

"Yeah, alright,"

James left the room, and yet Lily couldn't help but feel a hesitance in his movements that was not normally there. He looked as if he wanted to say something that he couldn't put into words. At once, Lily's mind filled with glee. Love. James was in love with her. That was it. That was the only solution she could deduce.

With a light heart, Lily began to dress for the ball.

It was half past seven that evening that Lily made her way down the Potter's grand staircase into the ballroom. The room looked magnificent through her emerald eyes. Never before had she enter the ballroom, nor had she heard a single utterance of its beauty, but as the room more fully entered her vision she saw the room to be an ethereal wonder from a dream. The air seemed to sparkle in a blue haze, and fairies gave magic to the thoughts of strangers, sealing the ballroom with a sort of impish link of life. It was as if the whole room was tied into the joy and happiness of the Potters. Laughter rang heavenly within the very walls, and Lily felt as if no wrong could ever be done to her.

A tall wizard, possibly from Spain, bowed to her, announcing her name as she gracefully treaded onto the landing of a second staircase. Young witches, recognizing her name, turned to point at her as discretely as possible and whisper into the ears of friends and beaus. Wizards like James, albeit without his elegant perfection, looked on regally, smiling with a distant warmth of kind foreigners. Brenna Potter rushed over encircling Lily in a lady-like hug and squealed.

"Oh, Lil, I hoped you had returned from wherever my wretched son led you. There are so many people you must meet! Did James tell you that the Minister is here? The Minister! Of course, she comes every year, but with all the chaos these days, I figured she wouldn't have the time." Brenna's smile darkened. "But Lily, first I need to know where James is. He disappeared some time ago, and- oh, what am I telling you this for? You went with him!- I haven't seen him since breakfast. Lily, his absence could hurt his career. It is mandatory that he make an appearance."

Lily nodded, slightly put off by the magnitude of James' responsibility. His dreams were to be put off by that of his parents, she'd know that long enough to be able to accept his fate. However, his lack of even the least bit of freedom saddened her. She couldn't understand it; she didn't want to.

Brenna sighed, her perfectly cheerful façade slipping slightly as she laid two fingers to her apparently throbbing temple. A pensive look overcame her features, a look Lily recognized so well in James. Brenna no longer seemed herself. The woman's sparkling eyes, James' eyes, looked almost dull and not nearly as beautiful. Her posture was not quite as upright as usual, and Lily might have said she was slouching. She looked older, and much more wise.

And she looked hopeless.

Lily knew of hopelessness, perhaps better than any other of the children that resided in the Potter ballroom. It was like desperation that could not be quenched, a burning coldness, not quite apathy and not quite depression. In that moment, Lily no longer strived to be Brenna Potter because Brenna seemed all too much like herself. The muted eyes. The icy skin. The lonely figure. For that instant, and that instant alone, Lily wanted more than she could ever have, ever dream or having, because even perfection, Brenna Potter's perfection, didn't seem to be enough.

"I'll look for him," said Lily.

Brenna looked up at her with her sad, dreary eyes. "Oh, will you?"

"I promise, to my death, that he'll be here tonight." She shook a bit of ruby hair from her eyes. Ad-libbing a bit, she continued. "I promise he'll be here, and he will make a speech to the entire ball on his appreciation of their attendance and his of regret at his tardiness." She gave a little smile and a nod. Mrs. Potter's show of misery was too hard for Lily's eyes to take in. All she wished for was a smile. "Alright?"

Mrs. Potter slowly brought her hand away from her forehead, looking confused. She inhaled, and then exhaled, and then she blinked. Once more, she looked like personified precision.

"Alright," she smiled. "I must find that vile band. They were due to strike up an hour ago! Muri says they're popular, Newt's Eye that is, but no one seems to know a thing about them. But I'm sure they will be wonderful- if I ever find them." She gave Lily another smile, this one more resolute, and then swept off in the direction of the bandstand.

Lily didn't understand.

Shaking off her confusion in the best way possible, a butterbeer from the table behind her, Lily turned back towards the stairs. Slowly, she began her ascent.

Three minutes later, Lily stepped outside of the Potter mansion into the cold April night. The icy air hit her relentlessly, and while she could not feel the cold through her enchanted dress, the air felt just as harsh. She pressed her back into the warm, oak door.

Despite the chill, the night was magical as always, if not more so. Fairies, ones even lovelier than the ones residing in the ballroom, lit the night, the stars, though unnecessary to light the way, shone in all their brilliance, and Lily felt, for once, as if Easter really did bring miracles.

She wasn't sure where in the world she would ever find James. The night was his. However, it seemed only sensible to search the gardens. Besides, the night was much too beautiful for Lily to miss.

She wandered the gardens and into the bushes that formed a small maze. The magic of the flowers intrigued Lily. She had never before seen anything like it. It wasn't brutal or violent, nor was it sweet or welcoming. It was much deeper that that, much more complex: it was divine.

Within every bush lived a few dozen fairies, and upon every branch were a few dozen alabaster blossoms. Lily had never seen a gardener on the property of the Potter family, nor did she understand what sort of gardener would &work& under the freezing conditions of that particular winter. Such a garden could only have come from a dream, a beautiful, remarkable dream.

A loud, cruel rustling interrupted her thoughts.

"How much?" a voice demanded.

"Oh, I dunno. It's all quite valuable, you know. Some very rich people would pay some very big sums for these pictures."

Teeth seemed to audibly grind into Lily's ear. "I said," the first boy began. "&how bloody much?&"

The second male snorted his conceit. "I got to go, Potter; I have a ball to attend." There was more rustling and then a loud snap and a muffled curse word. "I wouldn't think it over too much. You wouldn't want your mommy to worry her pretty little head. Ta."

As the boy rounded the corner closets to her, Lily flung herself into the bushes. It was the last thing she wanted to be caught spying on Lucius Malfoy, for the second voice was, indeed, Lucius. His renowned snow-white hair had, for once, betrayed him.

"Sirius, how much is this going to cost me?" James Potter asked of his closest friend. He sounded, strangely, frantic, as if his world was crumbling beneath him and his life depended on his question's answer.

"Truthfully, mate?"

James gave no reply.

"Five hundred," Sirius told him, his voice as bold and honest as Lily had ever heard it.

"&Galleons?&" There was more rustling and then James continued. "Where the hell am I going to get five hundred galleons.?"

"He could get more."

"Fuck," said James.

"And the girl,"

"Lily? What about her?"

Lily could not help herself. Upon hearing her name, she crawled out of the bushes into the shadows of a large, open space in the maze that she subconsciously assumed was the heart. Her hands were scratched and she could feel cold blood coming to rest on them, yet she hardly noticed the scratches, nor that her hair had come undone in the wind. Her attention was entirely focused on the mysterious events taking place before her. And so her unkempt appearance was unseen to all eyes. Momentarily.

James sat on the large, ornate bench at the center of the conversation's meeting place. His head had fallen into his hands and his fingers seemed to move thoughtlessly though his raven hair.

Sirius looked down at James, pity in his eyes. "James, you've got to give her up. She's bad for you, mate."

"Bullshit! You've seen her; she's gorgeous. I'm ¬& giving her up."

Sirius straddled the bench in frustration. "Too gorgeous. And too smart. She's a prude, James. Get over her."

James didn't answer.

"Malfoy wants her. And Fudge wants you-"

James snorted and shook his head, looking up to meet his friend's eyes. A faint smile clung to his face. "Dead. He wants me dead."

"Don't be so dramatic. Your parents want you dead."

"My parents want me powerful."

"Same thing."

James raised an eyebrow and then let his melancholy eyes fall back down to his hands. His hair looked more rumpled than normal and he looked tired, dead tired. As if his soul was worn out. "I'll get rid of her."

Sirius nodded sadly. "Good,"

Lily let out a shaky breath, trying to block of the rest of the conversation, but the breath turned into a sob. And the sob turned into several sobs because she thought James Potter loved her.

Apparently not.

Everything was breaking, everything Lily kept dear. Her entire life felt like glass that had been shattered into water. Every moment reflected another moment and any other consistency disappeared. All the lies that had been quilted together into happiness over the past months seemed to fall away, only to reveal more lies.

So Lily fled, not knowing where. She ran onward until she night met her and the Potter mansion seemed far, far away. It was dark and she was alone, yet she didn't really mind. Even entrapped in the breath-taking winter wind, she felt warmer than she could ever remember feeling. She felt free and she felt as if she was on fire, as if every word and every memory of James was being burned with hatred. She felt good. And she felt lonely.

Letting out an intense sigh from somewhere deep inside her thoughts, she settled herself down upon the ground and she waited.

"I want it to be May," she told herself. "I want it to be always May."

A/N: That was the end of chapter ten as well as the end of the story's first half. Thank you's go out to everyone who reviewed.

I would especially like to thank

lOvEiNhEaVeN  
Vicious Pixie  
Jillee257

for putting me on their favorite authors lists. It really encouraged me.

I'd also like to those of you who added me to their authors alert list.

To MelissaMarie: you really changed this entire story for me. Deconstruct, A Memoir is probably my favorite Harry Potter fanfiction I have yet to read. It is completely entrancing. To have one's writing copared to that of their favorite author (fanfiction author in this case), well, it's very inspiring.

I am so entirely elated that I have recieved 20 reviews. It may not seem like much but that was all I wanted- 20 reviews for 20 chapters, and so far, I've only written the first ten.

For everyone that put this story on their favorites list, I find you either very stupid or very incredible people. I didn't expect anyone to put it on their favorites list.

Thank you to everyone else who is not among the people mentioned above but has read, or is reading, this story anyway, thank you so much.

You've all made me happy, really. So I'll stop rambling now and get to work on the next chapter.

Thank you and goodnight.


	11. Author's Note

**There's a missing chapter here due to rewrites. This should be fixed soon.**


	12. Sunshine's Flower

Part Two

"Every action is followed by an equal and opposite reaction."

-Newton's Laws of Motion

Chapter One: Sunshine's Flower

Loneliness that is not truly loneliness, but is really emptiness, falls flat on blank minds. 

Lightness faded, and darkness prevailed, only to be triumphed once more by light. As such, radiance fell from the sky that morning on top of Lily Evans' thoughtless body. Dreams morphed and colors shifted until, finally, the glow became too brilliant, and Lily's eyes awoke. Pickled emerald met honeyed-yellow gold, and all stirred with the small girl's sighs.

But darkness fell on her mind, only two simple words echoing from the dreary chambers within. _Lily. James._ But two words do very little on an empty conscious, and such was Lily's emptiness that the meanings of such words, such names, escaped her. All they were was words, and so they fell away from her, still echoing rather like a warming drumbeat, but far, far away.

Sitting quickly, she reveled at her place in the snow. Beauty. Everything was beautiful. Nothing but the snow, and the air, and the sunlight could ever be so wondrously simple- or so dangerously complex. Her life lay in the hands of Mother Nature, but of all the things that seemed just beyond her fingertips, all the memories that refused her mind, she knew this fact better than any other.

_One plus one equals two._

All the austere facts she ever had come to know came to lie before her eyes, streaming into her, taking her senses with written words and simple sciences, but she could not grasp their meaning.

Why did Juliet not search for her Romeo, and not die in his arms instead? 

She swallowed back the thoughts.

"I _cannot_ believe her. Fucking lord! I can't believe she ran! Bloody idiot thing to do! She doesn't even know the landscape."

Voices came; strange ones that somehow seemed to not be so strange, lost but not gone. Butter rays on sunshine fell on another pair of heads, and Lily only listened to the rather loud, seemingly swelling voices. She was only vaguely aware of the grass falling from her hair and the earthy bed beneath her. More intent was she on _who_ she was than_ where_ she was.

It did not even come to her to question _why_ she was.

"Prongs, mate, if she ran, she ran. Good riddance, I say, and you should do the same. There's not much more to do than that."

To Lily's barren eyes, shaggy hair shook in the distance. Squinting slightly, more followed; a leg, an arm, a muscled torso, a right thigh. His body came into existence. A chiseled face, Adonis personified. Lily felt her lose herself in hazel eyes that would not take her in.

"Fuck off, Sirius, and stop baiting me. I'm not gonna bite."

The god's lips moved, taking his face and twisting it into a distorted pain of what it had been before. Sweat fell from his hair. He seemed far from home.

The second voice began to resonate. Sirius' words tumbled precisely as they'd formed in a sort of cruel but painless offense. "Go find your fucking princess- find whatever the fuck you want to- but you're not gonna find what you're looking for. The girl's not real, man. She's a fantasy, a deception, but never real. You're bullshit. "

The god shook his head once more, walking on, still feeling his friend's unmoving eyes on his back before they fell away in the opposite direction. He continued, and Lily lay down to sleep, seemingly many miles away but really just a heartbeat.

Snow completed her hideaway from all the watching world. White lay to all direction but down where she lay on the perfect verdant grass. As sleep took her once more, she didn't dare question insatiable thoughts. _How? Where? Who?_ But most of all, _why_. _Why her? Why now? Why ever?_ But that only led to more questions, more questions she was unable to answer.

But to James' hazel eyes, scarlet hair hung like blood to pure white, and that was too sore a sight to miss. That hair, that hair he'd take to his grave as the most beautiful of colors, could never go unnoticed by a boy in love. Worry stole him further than before.

"Lily!"

His eyes met hers in open agreement, and then hers clouded, darkened by confusion.

"My savior?" she asked.

He shook his graceful head. "Never, Lil,"

"But how could be anyone but? Have you come to answer my questions?"

His forehead clinched in wrinkles. His past words of Easter's eve loomed far too close to heart. He felt dirty, blacked, sad. _She's a prude, James; get over her._ He couldn't help but wonder if the girl before him, the girl he thought he knew so well, was really one and the same as his unbreakable Lily. She looked so shattered.

"Well, are you?"

"What?" his words felt dumb inside his mouth. Nothing seemed right. Things weren't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to kiss her on Easter night. It was supposed to be perfect. He wasn't supposed to fall in love. She wasn't supposed to be here. Everything, _everything_, was shattering. Even him.

_Beautiful and smart. That's a dangerous combination._

The words floated behind her eyes before the wind blew them all away.

"I assume you are god. Obviously I'm dead, aren't I? I can't imagine this is hell, and you look god enough to me. So can you help?"

James snorted. "You don't believe in god."

"Says who, you?"

He gave a little nod, letting his hair shake into his eyes. How could he be anything but a god? There was a point at which mortal perfection could not cross, and he was waltzing further past it with every passing second. She inhaled a gasp as his bangs brushed long, noir lashes stemming from the muddle of his eyes. So lovely.

"I'm no god, and you will never be an angel."

_Only a goddess. A melancholy goddess._

"But can you save me just the same?" she pleaded of him, squeezing back warm teardrops that threaten to treat her cheeks to liquid misery.

Pulling out a pack of Marlboros, he bent to her level and offered her a cigarette. She took it without question, desperately trying not to let her naïveté bear itself to such a god.

Faces stole her eyes until her memory fell on one boy in particular. James Potter.

"Sure,"


	13. Reckless Simplicity

Chapter Two: Reckless Simplicity

Even those without memory have their cares, and those who don't may be lost from the living world forever.

A red tendril of curls slithered its way around Lily's finger, rather like her loneliness, as she sat herself in the solitary confines of her snow-white quartiers. Both her hair and her segregation seemed out of place in the dull, colorless room. They felt heavily extraordinary in her chest somehow, like a weight of inky metal that colored her life out of match. She couldn't quite place the feeling into her life. It was odd, and real, and _normal _all at once.

But normal no longer seemed so comforting. It almost seemed dangerous. Perhaps, she thought in the darkness of her minds depths. Perhaps it was her normality that led her memories astray. Perhaps. But she did not truly believe her thoughts as they graced her, only gave hem a moments assurance before blowing them away in a desperate whistle.

In what had been the sanctuary of her room, but now felt more like a tomb that held her death, Lily let her tears fall away. Every little moment she could not remember, every little pain she wished she felt washed even further away from her. She let it all out with a soft sigh and a trace of bitter liquid on her flushed cheeks.

The smoke on her breath seemed far more prominent when forcefully mingled with her cold tears.

_How odd_, she thought to herself.

A large trunk lay before her, displaying countless little treasures James do doubt had instituted into her life; a box of chocolates carrying a sort of grassy-tasting syrup in their cores, a little glass globe with a greasy-looking boy inside being chase by bulgers, a photograph of dishes. Beautiful wizarding robes lay perfectly folded, and hidden from her eyes was a little blue-jean notebook with yellowed pages that held her soul. She refused to filter through the trunk for her life, and instead took to staring at its surface for clues.

As the sun began to set and her day of nothingness and James came back to her, Lily blinked blurriness from her eyes. Her isolation was starting to tie to her throat like a noose. It felt so tight, so tight she felt it'd pop right into more tears.

"You're weird."

Swallowing the lump, Lily met big hazel eyes with her emerald ones with a small sniffle.

"Pardon?"

The little girl threw her raven-father hair back from her eyes, nuzzling her shoulder as a blush came to her cheeks. She seemed so perfect in that instant. Even in her darkness she seemed light.

"You are weird" was the slow, muffled reply.

"Oh," Lily said, looking down to her own long, bare toes. They were painted a bright blue, she noted. Her throat seemed so tight as she did so. "Why is that?"

"You're crying." Muri stated softly, her voice less poignant than before. Her eyes did not meet Lily's and she seemed suddenly unsure. "But is that your weakness, or is it your strength?"

Lily raised her eyes once more to pierce the smaller girl's thoughts. Her face was thoughtless. Her eyes were dizzyingly lost. "But I don't know. Does crying make me weird? Or is it you? What is your name?"

Muri rolled her eyes dramatically, slipping back into a more pointed nature. _Almost like James._ But Lily couldn't possibly know such a thing. She blinked it back, but the words came to her anyway: could she?

"You know my name. I'm Muriel Potter; Muri says James."

"Oh. I can't seem to remember."

The girl waved her hand flippantly. "That's what I'm trying to _tell _you," said she. "You do know my name, and you do know me, and you do know everything there is to know about this world you're in."

"That can't be true."

Lily lowered her eyes once more.

"But it is; you're just sad. I bet you're just pretending to be stupid. Why else would you be like this? Imagine what James will do when he finds out you're a _fraud_. I bet-"

Her hair seemed to shade itself a scarlet color and her eyes faded to an almost-night green as Lily felt herself to snap straight so quickly she felt her heart would splinter in the intensity of it all. Her eyes glued themselves to Muriel's darker one, playing a game of primal seduction. Everything suddenly felt deliciously evil.

"Strong words from a weak heart,"

Muriel moved forward, her eyebrows narrowed and raised in challenge. Lily stood to meet her. The two girls tranquil nature seemed to abruptly fade away. Lily was wind, cleverly horrid, and Muriel was fire, beautifully dangerous. Each girl was lovely in her own right, but terrifying just the same. Their tempers rose as magic howled to life, circling them, entrapping them, horrifying them, weakening them.

Their bodies met in passionate anger. They clawed at each other's skin, raking and tugging. Hair of black and red fell disregarded to the floor. Lights flashed and wonder built, and adrenaline rushed by.

"_You should have died_." Muri hissed within her ear. Her heavenly voice had faded away to raw remains.

"And miss this? Never,"

But Lily's words resounded through the air and echoed off the walls and then fell to the floor as a _crack _was heard and gold light illuminated the room.

Both girls fell to the floor motionless, only to find a beautifully hazel set of eyes on their dulling hatred. Lily's wand lay beside her in splinters and pieces along with the rest of the room. It seemed heaven was falling with her.

She felt herself collapse, if possible, further into her misery. Crimson tears were falling from her skin. Life felt so horribly out of balance. But as darkness took her and sound faded from her mind, two sturdy arms took her in and she felt her soul fly.

The next morning awoke with her.

James' eyes fell down on her. His body shaped her own and rose lay in her hand.

"Mum said you cursed your self."

Lily swallowed her desires and turned away from the boy beside her. He was far too calculating to fall for her lies. And she could never lie to him anyway. He was right, and if she knew nothing else but that and his godly face it didn't matter. She had cursed herself into amnesia, or whatever it was that ate at her memory. There was no other explanation.

James's fingers cupped her chin, forcing her eyes on his. "I know what you did, Lily. I just-"

"Why does it matter? Why can't things go back to how they were? Why can't I just be Lily and you just be James? Why can't I just be happy again?"

"But you were happy. You must have been happy."

Lily scrunched her eyes together, closing them in silent frustration. Nothing suited her world. Nothing met end to end. Nothing came together. Fragments of memories came to and from her mind. And nothing seemed to fit. Her entire life was broken into a thousand tiny pieces. Some hid lost, and some lay just beyond her reach, but none were hers to claim... not even herself.

She simply shook her head.

Silence came to them, and Lily pulled herself closer to the boy to her side. His thumb began to draw slow circles around her knee.

"I was so scared yesterday, when you ran I mean. I thought you would never come back, that we'd never lie here like this again. I thought I'd be so unhappy, and you would be gone."

"And now I am," Lily told him gently. "Perhaps it was your fear that empowered my curse. Was this your wish?"

James's silence led her to lose her words within his eyes. They were so dark, and lovely, and wonderful. They shifted from brown to green to gold to black in a muddle of discrepancy. They were him, she knew; everything and anything, all at once. He was danger and he was perfection. He would be her life and he would be her death.

"What could make you so scared, James?"

He blinked back surprise, but his eyes covered themselves fast enough with nothingness. And indecision. His body stiffened against her. "I-well-I,"

Lily stroked his hair away from his forehead.

"I don't know. No reason, really,"

She didn't dare push him, and instead choose to stray into him slightly more. He seemed so right for her, so congruent. He was hers; her comfort, her perfection, her purity. She couldn't understand forgetting this. If cursing herself was losing James, it seemed now more a sacrilegious act that one of desperation. Something was missing.

No, everything was missing. She knew that as well. Even as his body molded to hers in such companionable silence, she knew there was one last truth in several hundred thousand thoughts that was just waiting to be discovered.

"How is Muriel?"

James' eyes rose to the headboard above his hippogriff feather pillow. His eyes clouded before he felt time press him for an answer.

"No one blames you for what happened, you know. Muri knew you were fragile. She knew. She shouldn't have pushed you like she did."

"I don't blame her. I must have done something horrible to her."

"Never. You don't know her. She wouldn't speak to you."

Lily turned away, letting her eyes rest on a mahogany and gold wardrobe across from her. She blinked, and pushed back the thoughts that were swelling in her head. Nothing gave a moment's resistance.

"She spoke as though she knew me well."

James gave a sort of muted chuckle, tilting his head to the side with a confused smirk. "Lil," he said. "Muri doesn't speak. Not well, anyway, and only when she has to..._only _when she has to. She had- she had some complications when she was younger. She never got past it."

"But-"

"Lily, don't speak."

A/N: Well, my computer's for shit. I've had this typed for weeks, and I just couldn't get to it! I know a longer post would be nicer, and perhaps an explaination as well, but I felt horrible about editing something I've been so horriblly distressed over. Or maybe I'm just as lost in this story as you all must be. Whatever the caase, the next chapter won't be out for another week or two at least. High school should go to hell!


	14. Fracture's Flower

Chapter Three: Fracture's Flower

_Where death reigns, life begins._

The world was black around her as Lily opened her eyes once again. Cold tile met her back and her hair was heavy in her eyes. Red and black was everywhere- like Gryffindor's death. It seemed so long ago now since James encircled her in his warmth and the Potter family brought her back into their house on an icy Easter Sunday. It seemed like so long ago now since she had James, but only like moments before when his ushering not to speak met her pale ears. She felt so deep down in herself where it was cold and empty and her heart was splintered over and over again; she felt beautiful and tragic.

_I am Lily. I am Lily. I am Lily. I am Lily. I am me. Where?_

She remembered the cracking of crystals just above her head, like perfection being broken into shards. The chandelier- James' chandelier with candles and warmth and light. It had sent her into a flurry of winds with its cleavage. Even at end it was smoothed out into… into Muriel, perhaps? Lily could feel her mind wandering away into oblivion.

Opening her eyes further, she met a colder sight of onyx and quartz beaded together into a pair of two eyes. _Lucius, Lucius Malfoy. _She knew the name swirling in the darker echoing caverns of her mind. He was a Muggle-hater, an aspiring Deatheater, a man of sin. She knew him just like she knew James. But where James was warm, she also knew this boy was ice. Her thoughts, she knew, could not be her own because she knew another boy, a boy like James and Lucius split in two and mixed against her Christian wishes into a third party. He was Sirius Black and Lily knew she had never in her memory met anyone of that name. Lucius may be ice, but he was a coldness she could not yet understand. And so she met his stormy gaze that would not move its colors.

"You have passive eyes." She spoke from her place on the ground.

"And you, mudblood, are in my compartment."

Lily's eyes did not move, only squinted slightly in confusion. Thoughts raced past a limit of speed she knew she should have set and the winds she had fallen into, the coldness that kept peeling back layer upon layer of her hidden self that even she did not yet know, seemed to race in through her ears and create a tornado of her thoughts until they were rushing… rushing… rushing away. His stoic eyes did not blink.

"No," Lily told him, biting back sighs and gasps at the unexplainable sounds of emptiness in her head. "I believe, that is to say I think," she added, almost nodding at the irony of the lack of such activity behind her eyes, "that this room is mine."

"Look, Evans," His voice was so acidulous. "This is my compartment, it is _always _my compartment so get-"

But then there were wheels turning beneath her, tracks squeaking beneath her weight. She was moving and sliding and the scarlet of her hair around her held her captive to the Malfoy's gaze. There was London out her window, King's Cross too, and it was rolling back behind her. Within a moment's thought, for her thoughts were indeed once again, as her eyes broke from his, passing quicker that the train through her head, she knew she could never go back.

She let red hair more scarlet that the walls shade her view of Lucius.

"I don't like you, you little prick."

There didn't seem anything else better for her to shape through her mouth and pass out into the world on her voice. The words just seemed to come from her, and though she couldn't find where they came from, she also couldn't put them back. She might have described the feeling to be as if she had been woken in a startle, and the surprise had somehow exploded through her into a rampage of curses. But somehow it resonated her hollow, where her Lucius should have fallen in her memory, into a hushed voice and a monotonous sound. It was like someone had increased a distortion in her to cover any pain or mistake.

Maybe the words came from memory. Maybe not. She didn't know.

But his presence became so cold and his eyes that did not emote became so furiously tangled in nothingness that she almost saw him in her. She almost saw hat coldness in her frailty. And that scared her beyond her deepest wounds, because beyond her own nothingness of mind, there was also coldness that she could still feel in memory.

She let herself fall into the aisle of the train in an instant, more afraid for her seeing sadness in her memory than her life in a Malfoy's hands. She did not know Lucius Malfoy. And though she always had before, she did not fear him. She only feared herself. But she knew that given the slightest chance at her throat, he might cut it with her own wand.

"James, dear, there she is, there's Lily!" Mrs. Potter's voice was on the train as well, slowed in Lily's ears by her oh so many thoughts.

"James!" She could not imagine a moment more dear to her than this, for before her stood James, behind her, Lucius, and between it all was the world. There was Lily. Everything she could ever be was locked within her mind. Were she to lose it, there would be nothing for her but death. But were she to gain those things she could be, she wasn't sure there'd be anything more. To see James gave her reassurance of life and place. She was Lily.

Once more, Lily met eyes with Lucius Malfoy, and at under her gaze he piled all his grace upon his head and stepped back within he shadows of his compartment. He never lowered his eyes from hers until the door blocked his mind.

With less than comfort in her mind, but more than unsettlement, Lily pulled herself away from confusion and transformed all the comfort and all the familiarity of James that she couldn't quite comprehend into a warm smile up at the Potter family. Her trust in James was infinite. Forever after, to guard her from herself and her blanking mind, he could be her eyes. Yet even as her lips quirked upwards and her eyelashes lowered slightly in succession of her thoughts, she knew there was something very wrong. She should know where she was.

_I should know._

"What is this place?" she asked, though not sure her voice was loud enough that even James, arm's length away and still approaching to bring her into his hug, could hear her.

"The Train. Can't you remember the Hogwarts Express?" Muriel asked her, perhaps forgetting for a moment her earlier battle with one Lily Evans.

Lily didn't answer, only stared blankly at the familiar smoothness of the name against her ears. "Hogwarts?" The word came from her mouth with less than foreign unease. "I don't know that place."

"Then you should listen when I tell you stuff," said Muri. "You might not have had to met Lucius then. I told you not to touch him."

But Lily hadn't touched; only had she looked. _Mirrors play tricks,_ she remembered, _as do songs. _Lucius wasn't more than a mirror, but Muriel was both. Lily wondered how she knew this.

Lily missed the loving eyes Alec Potter sent his youngest child, only feeling his wife's warm hug and her lips just below her ear. Had seen it, she might have wondered why the Potters' warmth was spread on the Muriel's cold words without restraint of temper. She might have wondered if they even heard their daughter speak.

As it was, she only guessed that the James' family had a strange dislike of her, and was only left confused when Mrs. Potter told her she was on the train to school and she should have a lovely time over Spring term.

"Don't be too strange now, Lily, darling. I get awful lonely when James won't write. And Muri here will only stay with me when it's dreary. I'm sure you'll be happy again soon." she said

But Lily wasn't sure she was ever happy.

Brenna continued, "James will remind you of everything, and if you write me, I'll write back. Besides, I'd like to send you my photographs. An untainted eye of judgement is always a nice touch to an artist's career."

"Mum! Don't use my friends like that."

Lily nodded, not sure of what to say.

"Owl me, Lil." said Brenna in her ear.

And then, with a small, sharp, pop, the Potters were gone, and James was next to her, and Lily's thoughts were all muddled into words that wouldn't logically relieve themselves of her. She could still feel Mrs. Potter's arms around her in a soft, girlish hug.

"I guess we're back here again,"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lily asked him. She pushed a strand of hair into her eyes and gazed out from the mass of red before blowing in up from her skin in a soft burst of breath. She swept her hair back and tried to smile, though she sure it must have looked more like a grimace. "Have I really been here before? I can't remember it."

"Well, for fuck's sake, Lily! It's not like you have memory of much. You couldn't even remember what you ate for breakfast, I bet." The words came out through his lips as the twisted around each other into some sort of strange frown. She wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I didn't eat breakfast. I haven't been awake since yesterday. I fell asleep with you. You must remember that. And then everything blacked out and your father screamed and-"

"That was four days ago. You've woken up and gone to sleep every day since then. And no one ever screamed."

Lily watched James' head tilt to the left, shake, and then tilt to the right. Then she spoke: "I remember that was yesterday, but I can't imagine you would lie. I just… I only remember just a bunch of blackness. And I remember Muriel scratching me. And I remember her screaming. I remember smoking your cigarettes, and that couldn't have been more than yesterday."

"You did. You smoke them everyday. You have for months."

She cocked an eye. "I don't believe that."

"Well, it's true. Whatever that's supposed to mean." He pushed her past a nearly full compartment and into one across the aisle and four doors down. Maroon seats glared back at her, and she instantly knew they had been there before.

Her eyes met his and he nodded to her.

"You looked sad after Christmas so I stared at you. Your eyes are so pretty when you're sad. I called you 'Lily, love' and we've been friends since. I never asked why you wanted to cry."

"I didn't want to cry. I never cry."

"Liar. You ate Chex for breakfast this morning, so you know. And black coffee with honey. Fucking gross, you've gotta admit." He paused and smiled. "I wanted to kiss you so bad that day in here. I never did. And by the time we rode back, you wanted to kiss me too, but you didn't."

"How d'you know?"

"I just do."

Lily was silent for a moment. There wasn't much to be said and she sat down without words. Coffee did sound awfully good.

And James' voice was silk lulling in her eyes to a steady sleep, with dreams of flying men, devil-horses, and eagle quills of a distinctly sharp sugar from a little store named Honeydukes. She dreamt of a never-ending path that eternally continued in darkness and in light, and in forests made of fear and towns of brilliant sunshine. James made Hogwarts a fairytale of the villainous Slytherins against him and the Gryffindor band of Marauders. He called her a princess of all beautiful things with aqua eyes and perfect red hair. But she only thought it a dream.

Hogwarts was home.

Lily knew this before even seeing it, so long before now. She had always blamed this on her sister's cries that witchcraft was evil and wizardry moronic. She said it was only because she was eleven and had never really had a place called home.

But Lily knew just when the castle came into view early Friday morning, just a week after she had left but ever far away, that Hogwarts would always be her love. Men would die and cheat and steal, but Hogwarts would always be warm and faithful as long as Dumbledore was Headmaster. Just the sight of the school brought his name to her lips. James just smiled and draped an arm over her before letting it quickly retreat a moment later.

She should have asked why; he might have told her then.

Slowly she retreated back into a darker corner of her threstal-pulled carriage, as far away from the other side as she could achieve with her only human body. Across the seat sat Lucius Malfoy, upright, regal, and completely undaunted by the school in the slightly frosted window beside him.

James grabbed her hand as the carriage slowed, and Lily inhaled deeply. Nothing was right.


	15. Fairy Dust

**Chapter Five: Fairy Dust**

_Though the form of the matter may change, the matter itself cannot._

Lily laid awake long into her first night of Hogwarts that she could remember, secretly memorizing each line in the walls, each portrait, and each astonishing spell she could. She couldn't say she did this by will, more by a subconscious need to connect it to some other part of her life than anything else, but Lily continued to do so no matter, deciding it was better not to forget this magical lifestyle again. Indeed, Hogwarts was simply magical to Lily Evans.

And because of it, she was so, so sad.

As such, she closed her eyes, still awake in the frosty night, breathing in the oncoming May morning, she slowly began to remember.

At the time, her feet were twisted into her crimson sheets and her hands tangled around her pillow. Her eyesight had tiny sparkles of tears in it. She couldn't help but push herself down into her mattress, tilt her head sideways, and then slowly let the tears fall.

_The whole world was cold around her in a late winter's blush of snow. She couldn't feel her toes beneath her dress's fraying edges, but still could feel the way the bitter winds throbbed as they blew against her hair. But tears protected her, spreading a warmth she couldn't deny. She fell into hushed sobs as simple words dropped from her lips._

"_I want it to May." She told herself. "I want it to be always May."_

Cold sweat surrounded her tears as images of her blacks and blues and startling red curls melted into the stark white of fresh snow began to haunt her. She knew the moment's perfection as if it were her own. She could feel herself in it. But with that, she felt a chill much hasher than the wind that had surrounded her and a sadness so deep it would not end.

In the icy window corner of her room, a hollow shriek broke Lily from her memory's bleakness. Se supposed the coldness of her thoughts must have frozen the water jar to crack. Too much pain slashed her. Too much uncertainty scared her. Ice and glass mixed together on the stone floor, the rug by the window muffling everything else. From her place behind the velvet moonlight curtains of her bed, Lily barely heard it. Had she been asleep, she might not have, but as it was, Lily couldn't stop herself from picturing each tear of glass that slid down to hit the stone. She couldn't stop herself from thinking of herself, breaking from further fracture.

Tears fell softly, as did Lily when sleep met her tears.

Staring into her tea, Lily swept her curls from her face, trying to force the icy image of her pale white skin swept with snow back away from her. Her heart felt darkened, hard even, and Lily wasn't sure if this was usual. She couldn't remember.

"You hate tea." James stated the words simply enough, then sat down opposite of her, as if to emphasize the point by being there to let the words ring with his presence. "But do you put honey in that too?"

Lily looked up, shaking her hair out of her fingers, and smiling kindly despite herself. "Yes, as a matter of fact. Would you like some?" She paused, frowned and then tilted her head, just like James might have. "Or are you above honey? If I remember right, you don't like it in your coffee either."

He shrugged, tilting his own head too. "Well I like you good enough, honey buns."

Lily blinked, and she thought she might have been blushing, so she took a bite of her eggs, looking over James's head for anybody at all. A boy with gracefully dancing hair wriggled his eyebrows at her from a little way down the table, and Lily thought she might have known him once. She looked back at James.

"Why doesn't your sister go here?"  
"Well, she's too young, isn't she?" He smiled slightly, and then shrugged. "But I doubt she'd be able to anyway, you know. She isn't really magical."

Lily distinctly disagreed, but she let him continue.

"She's a squib, I'm nearly sure. But she hurt you so bad that I don't know. She's never done that before. She barely talks. She'd never hurt anybody, you know, but-" He trailed off uncertainly, and his face glazed over, his eyes averted towards the clouds that lazily crossed the ceiling. "She's so shy."

Lily smiled lacing his fingers through hers, letting him kiss her thumb almost self-consciously. " But she _is_ beautiful, isn't she?"

"You know, she thought you were a vampire when she met you."

Lily eyed him with a strange light in her glinting off the paling green. She wasn't sure what to make of the words; her mind seemed to silence as soon as the past was mentioned, but she held tighter to his fingers, and stared back down into her tea.

"Yeah, a vampire. It was my fault, and I felt really awful about it. And you yelled at me to make me feel worse. I thought you were a real bitch, you know."

"You shouldn't be so honest. It's unkind."

"And you shouldn't drink your coffee with honey. It's unhygienic."

"I don't see how, James."

He simply shrugged.

"Miss Evans," the tight voice speaking her name seemed to assure her she was real, and Lily turned upon a woman with tight-set hair pulled back in a black-as-night knot. Her skin was stretched a little tightly, rather like her hair, and gray robes were draped over her slender frame. "I think you should come with me."

Lily looked over at James, at the way his forehead tightened up as he looked up at the woman from behind a cup of tea he had just poured himself. He smiled at them both, rather innocently, but his eyes were lost elsewhere. "Good morning, Professor. Would you like some juice before you leave our pleasant little tea party?" It seemed as if he hadn't heard her right.

Lily might have sworn she saw the woman smile, but she couldn't place her name, and decided it was better not to pretend she understood a woman she couldn't remember. Besides, she felt very much like she'd done something wrong, the woman's bespectacled eyes fixed on her as they were. She thought it would be better to follow the woman than to have her keep that look in her eye.

"No, Mister Potter," she said, her voice just as tightly pulled as the rest of her image. "I think we should save parties for a more carefree time."

"But, Professor-"

Lily slid herself over the bench, dropping James's fingers and avoiding looking at him, joining the Professor in a crisp walk across the hall. She felt odd leaving him like that, a little like she'd left herself there in his fingers, but she ignored it rather easily. It was simpler like that.

At the banging close of the Great Hall's wooden doors, the witch began to speak.

"Now, Miss Evans, I'd have liked to have spoken to you last night, but there really was no time for any of that. Dumbledore thought it was important to let you settle into the castle first. I'm not disagreeing with Dumbledore, of course, but I'm not sure that was for the best. You cast a very dangerous spell, and we can't yet be sure of the ramifications." She stopped walking, nearly at the stair of the Entrance hall. "Are you sure you're all right, Miss Evans?"

Lily paused. "Not really, no. I-I can't remember-"

"Yes, I was aware. Brenna Potter owled on your account four days ago. Now, if you haven't been informed, I am Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House."

"No, I hadn't been," Lily started, but McGonagall had began ascending the stairs, telling Lily, rather briskly, to hurry up.

Through three sets of stairs, they traveled up, up, and up. Lily vaguely remembered something called an elevator that traveled floor to floor, and the faintly wondered if Hogwarts, with all its magic, had anything similar.

She remembered her mother, with big blue eyes, looking at her sweetly, smiling, her hair wrapped up in a white scarf with Lily's own red curls spilling out. She remembered stepping into the whole in the wall, surrounded by glass on three sides, the iron door on the fourth, and the way the two moved up through the air. Her mother spelled sweetly of chamomile and honey, so beautiful, and so light, as if she was flying on her wishes. Her mother was faithful, believing fully in things Lily couldn't understand. She was magical in this, and completely and totally not a witch.

Lily looked up at McGonagall, who had stopped at the top of the stairs, looking down at her. "Does my mother know?" she asked. "About what's- what I've done, I mean." She couldn't find her words around this woman, couldn't place them as they should be or aim them where they should go. It seemed she was lost inside her wrongs now, like the Professor knew exactly how everything had come to pass, and didn't quite care. And whether that was how it was or not, Lily wasn't sure what to tell her.

"Dumbledore has written her. She has yet to reply."

Lily said softly, "I don't think she will. I can't know why, but I don't think she has it in her to understand. Tell her I've died and, and that I've gone to heaven- do you know what heaven is, because I can't remember?- but the rest won't make any sense. I don't know why."

The professor stopped at a stone gargoyle by the wall, and Lily eyed it with little thought, wondering idly if it might do a few backflips and then she'd remember everything again. But McGonagall only said "Licorice wand," and it stepped away from a gap in the wall to show a spiral staircase slowly spinning upward towards a oak door with a highly polished brass knocker.

Lily thought she might blink to make sure she really had just seen a gargoyle come to life, but was too distracted to do so, and simply followed the professor onto the stone steps. At the apex, just by a small love seat in a dark port color, McGonagall tapped the door twice with her pale knuckles, and the door opened with a slight creak.

"My dear, Minerva!" said a man's voice. He looked a little astounded to see them, standing as he was in his deep blue, silken night shirt that ran nearly to the floor and from which slightly pointy, wrinkled toes protruded. He smiled nevertheless, his deep eyes twinkling with a merry joy from behind half-moon spectacles, and his graying beard swung at knee-length as he stood to his full height. It seemed he had formerly, before their entrance, been tending to a little gray bird with a single, red feather at the top of it's head. The bird, from beside him, in a rather large golden cage that seemed to lack a door, fixed its little black eyes on Lily, and she thought then that it someday would become very beautiful. "I hadn't expected you for at least another quarter hour."

"Don't pretend to be surprised, Albus. I told you I'd be bringing the girl at the beginning of breakfast."

At this, the man smiled. "Have a seat, Miss Evans. I'm sure all this will be hard to take in." He conjured up a rather extravagant pink couch just behind her, and though she thought she just might fall over onto it, she, instead, remained upright.

"No, Professor, I don't think I should."

Dumbledore eyes gave a funny little glint, and the pink couch disappeared, and in its place was a sturdy looking mahogany chair. "I hope this suits you better then. We might be here a while."

Lily blushed, feeling rude and a little insufficient. Her words were mumbled, but it seemed she said, "Sorry, Professor,"

"Whatever for?" He didn't seem to be listening though, as he waved his wand absently, turning to smile faintly at her.

McGonagall, stood, still, stiffly by the door, as Dumbledore motioned for her, too, to take a seat in one of the chairs by his desk. But he remained standing.

"Now, Lily, you stayed with the Potters for Easter. How did you find the manor?"

She was surprised by the question, expecting some sort of lecture, despite the seemingly gentle demeanor of the professor. However, not completely sure how to answer, remembering so little, she began the expected remark at its pleasantness. "It's pretty there. I mean, of course it's pretty, but… oh, I don't _know_.I can't remember anything good about it, but I feel wretched about it because I'm not sure there was bad either. I, well, I'm not sure what to make of myself. Did I really do this to myself?"

Dumbledore sighed, looking over at McGonagall. "Perhaps I should have called you here sooner." He brought his long fingers together, and Lily couldn't help but look at a large golden ring with a strange symbol that wrapped around his left pinky. "I see you're very curious, still, and I can't imagine you doing this to yourself. You cast extraordinarily advanced magic; it is a great feat for such a young witch. Had you simply wiped your memory clear, this would be a different matter, and I would have no choice but to send you to St. Mungo's. But you are suffering the results of an ancient magic, a very deep one few understand now. You would not be likely to come across it- even in Hogwarts."

"I don't imagine I could have found it anywhere else. I'm Muggleborn- James said I was, anyway- and I-"She stopped speaking, very aware she was simply rambling now. She drew herself together again, still feeling a little fragile, like she was about to break apart again, and all her thoughts and feelings would go everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. "What is St. Mungo's?"

"The ward for magical maladies." McGonagall said softly. Her eyes were a little wide, though she had obviously heard the story before. She tried to remain silent.

"Could it have been an accident, Professor?"

Dumbledore sighed. "That would be most frightening, but yes. It is possible. But where might you have learned to create such an accident?"

The three were silent for sometime, each in his or her own set of thought, though with the same general idea.

_What if I'm evil_, thought Lily. _James speaks of dark times ahead, of deaths that have taken place. He speaks of fear, though he seems so strong. What if I am dark? What if Muriel hates me because she is a pure, beautiful, singing angel, and I am dirty. I am dirty. _

McGonagall spoke, "We have spoken, Albus-" But Dumbledore shook his auburn beard, and raised his wrinkled hand, looking very old.

"Yes, we have, and I'm sure Lily is aware we will continue to speak. These are dark times, for now she can rest easily without the trouble of that." He looked at Lily squarely. "Do you remember anything of that night?"

"A little. Maybe it's just that I was found there, but I think I remember falling in the snow, and I remember being very cold. I couldn't feel my fingers at all. I must have been at a party because I was dressed in velvet or silk, or something soft like that. And I wished that it was May." She stopped for a second to smile, trying to stop it, but failing. "And then James found me."

"Yes, Misters Potter and Black found you."

"Sirius Black, sir?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled ferociously but he seemed to frown harder. "Yes. Do you remember him?

Lily frowned too. "No, I don't."

"Now Lily, I don't expect any of this to make sense to you right now." McGonagall muttered weakly as she led the girl from the office and up more stairs in the northern direction of Gryffindor Tower. She sighed as they reached the seventh floor. "But I want you to keep away from anyone you don't think you should trust. One must be careful, and you are so vulnerable now, you should be so tenfold."

Lily stepped up from the last stair. "Professor, what if I can't trust anyone?"

The professor was silent for a moment. "Then you must trust yourself." She squinted awfully as she led Lily to a portrait of a large lady in a pink, frilly dress, and then she spoke again. "I shall allow you a three day hiatus before you begin classes again. I expect you to study over those three days, and hopefully by Thursday you'll begin with you're schedule anew. Is there any chance you remember any of your lessons?"

Lily wanted to look her straight in the eye and say, 'I don't even remember my name.' She decided it was better not to, and shook her head. "No, Professor,"

McGonagall looked as if she had expected this negative answer, but, still, her breathing seemed tighter as it was spoken, and Lily thought she should have said something a little less certain. She felt insolent for saying so, and she tried to smile to make up for it, but it felt more like a grimace.

The Professor pulled her own sort of tight-lipped smile. "Yes, well, as expected." She turned away, and started down the stairs, not even thinking to say a goodbye.

"Professor," Lily called. McGonagall looked at her, turning slowly to do so, but turning nonetheless. "Will you write my mother as well. I mean, I'm not sure I should; I think I'd hurt her. I think she'd say something about Gods and Jesus and the Church. I seem to remember something about that. She'd say I'd done something wicked for this to happen. But you, well, you're the closest thing here to a mother, as head of house, I think. I think she'd understand it better if you told her."

McGonagall was silent for a moment, and then she spoke. "Yes, Miss Evans, I think I will."

James looked at her, his forehead creased. "I'm supposed to be in class, you know, but when you go off gallivanting with the professors, I get a little unnerved. You _know_ all they want is sex, the little perves."

Lily figured he was grinning, sprawled across one of red couches at the corner of the Common Room, warmed by the fire, and looking like a chiseled god. She supposed he must have waited there for her to return, spending at least an hour thinking, praying, whatever it was James did when he was alone. He sat up at her entrance, speaking at the bang of the portrait closing, hoping he would make her laugh.

She collapsed next to him on the couch, letting her head fall into his lap. "You're skiving for me," she said, giggling lightly, because it seemed such a strange offering.

"I'm supposed to. I'm your mate." He laced his fingers though her hair, smiling, rubbing the soft skin with his fingertips. Something about his way with her was very sexual, she realized absently, and she felt she just wasn't a match for him, but smiled anyway.

"Really now? I wasn't aware."

She sighed, and he must have heard it, because he took her hand, saying, "Come with me."

Lily looked at James, and her eyes hurt. It was dark in his room, and somehow that suited it. Dark drapes were pulled across the three windows, each bed was shrouded by dark crimson velvet, a little darker than her hair, but a faint golden glow shone lightly from a large desk around which lay six beds. James's was second to center, she assumed, as he pulled her towards that one, siting there, drawing them both through the velvet. For some reason, it seemed like he was the only thing that mattered.

He kissed her gently enough, lips barely touching hers, barely there butterfly wings to her own. She felt foolish, clumsy. And he kept telling her she was beautiful, more amazing than anything he had ever touched. She drew back, kissing his collarbone, kissing his wrist, as he pushed her down on the bed. He brought his fingers though her red curls, and his eyes looked dark, lost, wondering.

She knew she felt just like him, like they were the only thing that mattered, like nothing in the world could compare to this moment.

"Lily," he said softly, pushing her robes over her shoulders. "Lily I want you to promise me something."

"What?" she asked, suddenly breathless, suddenly unsure.

"Promise you care."

He reached away from her, into a drawer by the side of the bed, into the nightstand. She looked at him oddly as he pulled out a paper bag as he lay it between them. She sat up straighter crossing her legs into a pretzel shape, trying to peer in.

He sighed. "Lily, I think I'm in love with you." And she kissed his cheek.

"I think you're insane."

"And I don't want you to love me, since you'd hate me if you knew the truth." He tilted his head. "But you do know, don't you? Somewhere in you, you know." He looked down at his hands, like they'd been somewhere rotten. He sighed. "I'm gonna tell you everything you are," he said. "Everything."

"James," her voice was small. "What's in the bag?"

"Fairy dust, Lilia. To make it real. It's illegal here- has been for centuries. But it doesn't hurt anything, and it doesn't change it; it just makes it more. It's dangerous to non-magic folk- to Muggles and the like."

Reaching into the bag, she took a pitch, cocking her head at the way it shifted colors. It was cool and warm, and it seemed as if it was barely there.

James dragged his fingers slowly up her foot, leaning down to kiss each toe. "Lily, you're holding pure magic."


	16. Pure Magic

**Chapter 14: Pure Magic**

_And if anything would cure the ache, it would be love._

Lily looked James fully in the eye, balancing the fairy dust on her finger, not sure what to make of it. He pinched a little off her finger and threw it over her, laughing lightly at the way the sparkles glinted here, there, and everywhere she was. And she threw the rest over the both of them, smiling, too, at how pretty it was.

_If everything is as real as this_, she thought madly to herself, _ then everything is beautiful. I am beautiful. The world's perfect, and nothing else matters._

They smiled at each other like the world had just ended and that was okay. Something about her felt different. And James said softly that she was everything he thought she was, and he was so, so glad of it. He pulled her over her crossed legs, and she pulled back, holding on as tight as possible before losing her grip on him.

She kissed him above his eyebrow. And he rolled over her, letting his robes fall from the bed as she pulled his shirt off too. "You," she said, "are unconditionally perfect. Did you know?"

He growled, pushing his lips to her collarbone, licking in little circles. Her skin was fire to the touch, she thought. And he was beautiful, an alabaster god sewn into pretty, golden skin. And her? If she was his, then that was good enough. She groaned at the way his hands pushed up her shirt, at the way she so naturally arched her back in appreciation, at the way her skin was bare to his. His lips were softer than hers, and she didn't mind.

"Lily," her name was in his breath. "Lily, I can feel you in the way my heart's beating. I can feel you through my soul."

She pressed her fingers into his back a little harder, wondering if she could feel herself there too. She kissed him just above her fingertips, then on his own fingers, and he stroked her face thoughtlessly before leaning down into her breast. He kissed the dark satin of her bra, not thinking about the way she gasped, at the way her chest drew in, or the way her hand clutched at the hair at the nape of his neck as he did so. He kissed her there again, and laid his head down.

"I wasn't lying, Lily," he told her, his words butterfly kisses on her heart. "I wasn't lying to anyone, was I? I want you here again so you can tell me how wrong I am at everything. And how all I do, how all I'll ever do is hurt you. But I don't know how to take it back."

"James, I don't want anything from you. You don't have to tell me what you've done." She wasn't sure she meant what she said because it hardly turned though her mind before it whispered out on her breath. All she wanted was to be touched. Words were too much, too concrete. "James, I think I've done things you'd never believe. And I don't think I'll ever tell you them."

"I'm wicked, Lily."

"I know you are. It's beautiful. It's godly."

He smiled and his eyes sparkled so much she thought he was crying. He seemed as if he was falling back from her, and she gripped his arms as tightly as she could to stop it. And she realized rather suddenly that he_ was_ crying, and his tears were slowly rolling down her breast.

She pulled him to her, kissing his eyes, the ones he'd closed because he was ashamed she'd see all he had done there. She kissed an eyelash and a little scar on his hairline. She kissed him beside his lips, once on either side. And then he opened his eyes, and he looked at her like he'd never seen her before.

He rolled over, so she sat with legs on either side of his own, and then he sat up too, and looked at her, just looked at her.

"It's fucking unbelievable where we've been, Lily. I saw you on the train, and my heart beat when I realized that you didn't hate me. You'd changed, and you'd grown, and I wanted to know why. _And I loved everything you could ever be._"

Lily blinked, and reached behind her, slowly unhooking her bra.

"James," Lily said, looking though him, looking though his sleeping eyes. "James, would you wake up?" She thought she saw his insides stirring up in his thoughts, and she thought she saw the way his heart fluttered and woke. "James, open your eyes; I know you're up."

Tight-lipped, she stared down at him, as he looked up to greet her. Her eyes were guarded, cold, conserved to say nothing to him. He reached up, but she pulled away, without words, and wrapped herself tighter in a scarlet sheet.

"Lily, we've broken about a hundred school rules today. Do _you_ really have to look at me like I've done something wrong? I haven't done anything you didn't do." His words were muttered through a soft groan, but his voice was thick with intensity, nonetheless, and his cheeks were rosy with satisfaction.

"You gave me a journal. You gave me one, and I didn't remember it. And you didn't _tell_ me." She wondered vacantly at the way her heart felt like a frost had taken it into a clutch so tight, that she couldn't control herself. "Were you ever going to tell me that?" She could feel her thoughts rippling at the back of her mind where she couldn't quite reach them; she could feel the way they surged with hatred. And love. Her words were hot on her tongue, despite it, though they were very distant from herself and she wasn't sure it was her speaking. "Jamie, I'm _dying _to start living again. And I'm Lily, and I know that, but I'm not alive right now. Because something happened and I can't remember." She stopped, not sure what to say, wanting to slap James until he bled, until he hurt, until he couldn't feel anything, just like her.

She blinked, starting to believe that she did feel, that she did love, that she did fear. She blinked again, and moved to reach into the back pocket of James' jeans for the red and white pack of cigarettes. In a wrist's flick, she drew one from the pack, then proceeded to light it with a platinum lighter she had hitherto taken from James' nightstand. She drew in the smoke until she coughed, and brought the cigarette so close to her nose she thought the intensity of it would make her sick. And she inhaled again and sighed.

"James, I just _fucked your brains out_ and you're looking at me like I'm crazy."

James sighed too, and said, "Not so crazy. Just beautiful," Laughing like her voice was an old friend of his, he leaned up and kissed her nose, and lit a cigarette for himself. He laughed again though the smoke, wrapping an arm around her, telling her it was good to hear her talk like herself again.

She thought she should put out the cigarette on his arm and hope it scarred his far-too-perfect skin.

"You know, Lily," he said though another set of laughs. "You've got hangovers from hell."

And she just blinked and blinked, raising up her chin a little, and then settling to curl up into James's warmth. "I'm in love with you. And I don't think that's very fair."

"Why's that?"

"You don't want me to love you. And I don't know why. And there's a journal somewhere that just might tell me." She stopped for a moment, breathed, and stubbed the Marlboro into the wall. "I've done something awful, James. I've done something so bad that you can't beat it."

He kissed her neck, rolling over her, kissing her chin, and drawing circles around her thigh, moving inward, until she gasped despite herself. "Shut up, Lilia. I don't need to know."

"_I _do."

Lily sat on her bed, deciding absently that James' was much more comfortable, but she couldn't concentrate on the thought, losing it somewhere in a lost place of her mind. The world had fallen in a different direction, and she wasn't sure why. She wasn't the same Lily Evans she had woken up as that morning. She wasn't lost or careless or slow or indecisive. She was who she had always been, yes, but what she had been had morphed into something she didn't remember it as. She rolled over onto her stomach, fingering a denim notebook and wondering what to do with it to make the words more real to her.

_Alex was beautiful about the way he cried. He kept his tears in a proud way on his face. I couldn't compare to him ever, and I wish I could make it all so good. But how could I ever do it to him? And why do I have so hurt so bad because of it? I don't blame him. I know I should, he's so much older, but I can't. Maybe he should have known better, but it doesn't matter now. I wanted him to do it. I liked it. How couldn't I have? It's like, the other day when I was thinking about how sex with Potter would be – yes, so, I've thought about it, but it isn't as if I'd actually do it, is it?- and I was thinking about how it would be beautiful. But what Alex and I have done is holy, even if we both hurt because of it. I don't think it would be like that with James. Potter, I mean. I don't want to stop using surnames because then I very well just might run off and have sex with him. And I'll probably fall in love with him before I'm through. What a holy terror that would be!_

_-Lily_

She sighed deeply, feeling her breaths move her stomach, and snapped the notebook closed again. Somewhere deep in her, Lily could still feel the shadows of complete and total ecstasy building in her over and over again, swimming blindly in images she didn't want to remember. She could see the jagged, black fringe of James's hair falling over her eyes, and, for some reason, she felt as if this repetition of motion and memory and bliss wasn't a first. And at that moment, laid out straight as she was, eyes closing despite her will to stay awake, she just wanted to know who Alex was. She wanted to know why he cried.

"Lily, lovebird, if you never wake up, I'll cry for you."

Lily blinked, forcing a smile, wanting to cry. "Would you? I'd feel much better about my death if you would." She felt her breath shift around her mouth and she waited for him to kiss her. His lip twitched as he did so, and she hit her forehead to his, blinking back a laugh. "I think I'd love you to the moon, James, if you weren't so damned strange. Would you tell me why you sitting on my feet?"

"I'm not sitting as much as I'm hovering, Lilia. I don't think I'll stop either, so don't even ask." He tapped her cheek with a finger and she kissed the nail he'd hit her with. "Do you still think you could love me that far up?"

"I'm not sure. You're blocking my view."

"I flew _very _far of the ground to block your view. I don't plan on moving now." He kissed her nose, turning to look away as Lily told him she was sure he simply _hated_ flying up to see her. The blue jean journal he had given her four months prior lay shut just above her head, and he watched it for a moment with a crossed look of bloodlust and wonder.

Lily followed his gaze above her, weaving her fingers through his. "Would you like me to read you some? It's all a little strange and disconnected, but you might like to hear a little: a good deal of it concerns you."

James shrugged as if he didn't care, but his eyes brightened with a strange light Lily wished she could read. For a moment, he looked as if he had been offered the truth of life and wasn't sure what to say in affirmation or decline because he knew nothing else would matter once she had told him. "Read me something sexy, okay?" He shook some hair from his face and smiled down at the sheets like he was trying to convince himself everything was okay.

Lily breathed in deep and flipped to the middle of the book. "Sexy? Or _kinky_?" She answered herself for him with a little secretive smile, letting red waves of hair fall over her eyes. She kissed his jaw and fell down into her pillows. "_Alright_. 'I'm falling from my bed and down and down and down. And if I fall any harder I think I might die. I know I will because I _like_ James. And I'm not supposed to. What if I fall in love with him? What if I fall apart? And down and down and down. I can hear him down in the Common Room, right through the floorboards. He's laughing and I bet his eyes are something amazing right now. I bet they're laughing too, twisting in on themselves so hard they burst outward, knocking the whole rest of the world back down again until they _love_ him. I don't want to love him. It'll hurt so bad I'll break. And I'll die. And I'll become something new. I can already feel it happening. _My god_, I want to _fuck_ James Potter.'" She paused and laughed and looked at him. "I _do_ want to fuck you. I want to fuckyou so hard that the world twists up"

"I don't want to_ fuck_, lily. I want to love." He smiled, and when she frowned in response, his brow creased and he tilted his head, just as she did to match. "What's wrong, ladybug?"

"Ladybug?" He nodded so she nodded too. Her eyes looked sad, though, and she continued to speak. "I just want to feel less clean. I hurt. Cleanliness hurts. I thought I was so… not this. I want something dirty and rough and beautifully physical."

"I couldn't ever… I couldn't _ever_. How can the world change so much in a day, Lily?"

"It can. It does." She straddled him carefully at his knees, dragging herself upward, hands moving first. She touched the crotch of his slacks decisively, and then leaned down to kiss him just above her hands. He stopped her.

"Lily? What did you find in that book of yours? What's in there that you didn't want to see?" His eyes widened. "Did you write what I did- what I said?"

Lily blinked, realizing rather suddenly that he was holding her hands so she wouldn't touch him again, She blinked again. And again, and then she began to recite from the denim notebook, "'To look at him is to look at rape. And it's strange that something so abstract to me is now so real. I hurt all over. I hurt. I hurt.'" She sighed through her teeth and tilted her head to the right. "Do you know what's happened to me?"

"I-_"_

"Shush, James; say nothing. I don't think anyone hurt me. I think _I_ hurt me. I _know _I did. I don't think I'm even fucking alive. I think I'm living in a parallel world or an afterlife or a limbo of what I'm supposed to be. Maybe we're both dead."

"Don't say that. You're here. You're with me. I've hurt you so much already, I couldn't hurt you any more."

"Then just keep me warm." Lily whispered, falling over him.

He smiled, wrapped his arms around her, and rolled over. "I can do that."

**A/N: I've been trying fervently for the last two months or so to rewrite all of what I've written so far for this story. It's difficult and it's stopped me from writing anything else. But here are two new chapters.**


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